Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is a fantasy/comedy starring Chris Pine, Justice Smith, Regé-Jean Page, Michelle Rodriguez, Hugh Grant, Chloe Coleman, Daisy Head, and Sophia Lillis.
Bard Edgin (Pine) and his partner-in-crime, the barbarian Holda (Rodriguez) have been sentenced to prison for thievery. Edgin turned to crime following the murder of his wife Zia (Georgia Landers) in order to provide for their daughter Kira (Coleman), but was betrayed by his reprobate partner Forge (Grant) and his wizard chum Sofina (Head). After escaping, they assemble a party in order to heist money and a resurrection tablet from Forge, but along the way learn a valuable lesson about the power of friendship. Well, kinda. Really the lesson is about found family.
Anyway, the party has to venture into the Underdark with the help of GMPC Xenk (Page) to retrieve a widget to allow their under-confident sorcerer Simon (Smith) to break a magical lock, and then get stuck in the gladiatorial High Sun Games in the city of Neverwinter before realizing that the real plan has been for Sofina to cast a spell turning everyone spectating the games into undead monsters.
Look, the movie is a D&D campaign put on film. Michelle caught a lot more of the Easter eggs than I did because she's much more familiar with Forgotten Realms, but I know the structure of an RPG campaign when I see one. Whether or not the mechanics are 100% accurate (they're not, but they're a lot closer than you'd think), what impresses me about the movie is how they managed to portray this weird fantasy world that's been created as a backdrop for an RPG - which is a very different thing than a world created as a backdrop for a novel. Magic is normalized, but it's also a formal structure and an accepted part of the world. Five-year-olds can do it, but powerful wizards are still fucking scary. The world has a history and unlike the 2000 D&D movie (the bloody awful one with Bruce Payne and Thora Birch), it movie doesn't dumb it down and skip the best parts trying to make it accessible.
The cast displays some real chemistry, and I was pleased to see that they spent some time playing their characters in an actual D&D game, because it really feels like if you're going to do this movie you should know the source material (minus Hugh Grant, of course, who can't be bothered, but whatever, his character wasn't a PC anyway). And, the movie managed to make resurrection magic something that's possible but still special, which is hard enough to do in an RPG, let alone a movie.
I enjoy, too, that the cast and the supporting cast isn't entirely white. It seems a small thing, and an obvious thing (in a world where fantasy races are clearly common and no big deal, it doesn't seem a problem to have, like Black people around, too, but some people do seem to get annoyed).
As well as this movie was reviewed, though, it didn't make money at the box office. I'm not sure if it wasn't as accessible as I think, or it wasn't perceived to be such, or if this is residual shit from the pandemic, or what, but it's a little disappointing, because I'd totally go see these characters again.
My Grade: A-
Rewatch Value: High
Next up: Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3
No comments:
Post a Comment