Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Paramount’s Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is a rare licensed-property film that manages to live up to its source material. Dungeons? Check. Dragons? Affirmative. Thieves? Of course. Honor? You betcha. Among? Well, that isn’t easily measured, but we’ll confirm that for consistency.
Directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (who co-wrote the screenplay with Michael Gilio from a story by Gilio and Chris McKay), the film stars Chris Pine as bard Edgin Darvis, Michelle Rodriguez as barbarian Holga Kilgore, Justice Smith as sorcerer Simon Aumar, and Sophia Lillis as druid Doric, pitted against Hugh Grant as the charming rogue Forge Fitzwilliam and Daisy Head as the Red Wizard Sofina. Notable supporting roles include Rege-Jean Page as paladin Xenk Yendar, Chloe Coleman as Edgin’s daughter Kira Darvis, and Jason Wong as a Red Wizard assassin.
The plot, like any good tabletop RPG session, follows a series of incidents that bring together the unlikely team to take on a seemingly insurmountable challenge. Following a job gone awry, Pine’s Edgin and Rodriguez’s Holga find themselves imprisoned in Icewind Dale (the first of many locations that fans of the franchise will recognize). Following a daring escape, they discover that their erstwhile rogue companion (Grant’s Forge) is now the lord of Neverwinter, working alongside Sofina; not only that, but it is revealed that Forge and Sofina had betrayed the rest of the group, and they are working toward some nefarious scheme. Following another brush with death, Edgin and Holga find their sorcerer companion Simon, who, upon directing them to recruit Doric, helps complete the party.
What follows is a series of unlikely incidents reminiscent of any tabletop gaming session, involving a journey to get a McGuffin item, which brings them into contact with some memorable side characters (including Page’s Xenk Yendar, a paladin who manages to stick around long enough to make an impact, but leaves before his “straight man” schtick overstays its welcome). There’s a particularly amusing scene in an ancient graveyard involving the interrogation of several long-dead corpses to determine the whereabouts of the McGuffin item, leading the party from one grave to another as they seek out the last person to possess said item.
Throughout most of the journey, characterization takes precedence over the plot. In fact, it’s the characters that keep what is a largely straightforward, step-by-step quest interesting (again, like any tabletop session). The friendship between Edgin and Holga, Simon’s insecurity, Doric’s focus on the mission ahead – every member of the party is given a role and ample screentime. That said, at the beginning of the film, there was a fair amount of Marvel-esque quipping that (fortunately) eventually settles into more natural interactions between the characters - characters who, while heroic, aren’t the stuffy heroes of classic high fantasy.
Performances are strong across the board. Edgin and Holga, though they take plenty of snipes at one another, have a bond that shows through in small character moments. This is compounded by the natural chemistry between Pine and Rodriguez. In contrast, the relationship between Simon and Doric is marred by romantic undertones. Fortunately, each character’s individual journeys and character moments are enough to overlook this awkwardness – a credit to both Smith and Lillis’ performances. Grant is appropriately charming and slimy in his role as Forge, a man clearly in over his head working with Head’s Sofina, who, unfortunately, isn’t given as much to do as an antagonist – though what she does is effective enough.
Dungeons & Dragons fans will probably find plenty to love and nitpick in equal measure. There are plenty of fleeting references – mentions of Baldur’s Gate, Mordenkainen, even a visual glimpse of a Drow city in the Underdark. That said, gamers may question the use of druid Wild Shape, or wonder why a bard isn’t able to inspire, or question travel time and geography.
Nitpicks aside, the film lives up to tabletop gaming experiences in one specific way – it prioritizes fun above all else. Capably acted, well-written, and fast-moving, this is an adventure film that feels unlike anything else, yet simultaneously a throwback to swashbuckling adventure films from decades ago. The plot may simply be a step-by-step questline to achieve a shared goal, but really, it’s just an excuse to explore the world with interesting characters. What better way to create a film based off a tabletop RPG?
By: Stefan
