When movie theaters were shut down in 2020 and I couldn't write reviews anymore (or more accurately I no longer had the mental energy to because the world around me was on fire), I had to find a new creative outlet. That ended up being Dungeons & Dragons, something I had dabbled in right before Covid, but fully emersed myself in after getting into Critical Role, leading to me starting a campaign that's been going strong for two and a half years now. I wasn't the only one. The tabletop role-playing game has experienced a major renaissance in the past couple years, thanks to a variety of factors, including the aforementioned Critical Role, Stranger Things, 5th Edition making the game much more accessible, and the overall greater acceptance of nerdy hobbies by the general public. With it being bigger than it's ever been before, it seemed only a matter of time that we'd be getting a new D&D movie, or at the very least one that isn't a cinematic train wreck singlehandedly saved by Jeremy Irons turning into a ham and cheese sandwich before our very eyes.
Set in the fantastical world of the Forgotten Realms, our story follows Edgin (Chris Pine), a charming bard who has resorted to a life of skullduggery after the death of his wife, and his partner in crime, a tough as nail barbarian named Holga (Michelle Rodriguez). After breaking out of prison, they track down their old business partner, the treacherous con man Forge (Hugh Grant), who's since become the lord of the city of Neverwinter with the help of a shady wizard (Daisy Head), has taken guardianship of Edgin's daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman) and poisoned her against him, and holds an ancient relic Edgin needs to bring his wife back from the dead in a vault protected by highly powerful magic. In order to get them both back, Edgin and Holga enlist the aid of Simon (Justice Smith), a capable but insecure sorcerer, Doric (Sophia Lillis), a rebellious shapeshifting tiefling druid with a deep distrust of humans, and Xenk (Rege Jean-Page), a handsome and heroic paladin. Together, they embark on a quest to acquire the tools needed to pull off their big heist and rescue Kira.
As an avid D&D player, I wasn't sure exactly how they were going to pull this off, seeing how the core appeal of the game is for players to create their own unique adventure. In a lot of ways, the predicament writer and directors John Francis Daily and Jonathan Goldstein face is similar to that of Phil Lord and Chris Miller when they made The Lego Movie. And similarly to how Lord and Miller took the opposing approaches of Lego building and made them the foundation of the movie's core philosophy, Daily and Goldstein took some of the game's most absurd and inventive elements and make them the basis for its action and comedy. To this end they pull it off remarkably. I personally liked imagining how these character's misadventures would've played out at the table. A spell backfires? They made a bad roll. A character leaves the party instead of sticking with them to the end? Their player probably had to drop out due to schedule conflicts. (Schedule conflicts: The true evil of tabletop RPG's.) And sure, they don't always follow the rules to the letter, but does it really matter if the druid wildshapes seven times in a row without taking a long rest if the results are this badass? Despite having plenty of Easter eggs and deep lore references to keep the die-hards satisfied, but it's not so much that it ends up alienating your average moviegoer. Rest assured, you don't have to know anything about Mordenkaden, the Underdark, displacer beasts, Baldur's Gate, or even what a saving throw is to enjoy this movie on its own terms.
Of course, no game is complete without its players, and the cast assembled here are a major reason why this movie works as well as it does. Most of the main actors here have plenty of experience with ensemble casts and big budget blockbusters, and their chemistry is palpable. Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez bounce off each other especially well, slipping perfectly into their respective roles as the fast-talking idea guy who always a plan A, B, C and D, and the stalwart bruiser whose solution to most problems depend on how hard they can be punched. Justice Smith's experience with playing exasperated nerds comes into play as the party's resident spellcaster, especially since his story arc centers on him overcoming his crippling self-doubt to save the day. Hugh Grant's late career turn as a scenery chewing debutant works wonderfully in this case, bringing the same slimy energy he brought to Paddington and The Gentlemen, and doing his damn best to make the audience ask why nobody just slaps the bastard whenever he's onscreen. Rege Jean-Page is a latecomer to the party and thus doesn't get as much screen time as the rest of the gang, but he makes the best of what little time in the spotlight he does get. The only one I'd call underdeveloped is Sophia Lillis as Doric. Don't get me wrong, she gets plenty of moments to shine. In fact, one of the movie's highlights is an extended long-take where she breaks out of a castle by morphing into several different animals. But when she's not turning into an owlbear, she isn't given much to do except stand around give the occasional snarky remark.
In fact, when Xenk enters the picture, the rest of the gang is reduced to a Greek chorus who follows him around while he does all the heavy lifting. (In the RPG world, we call this "railroading".) And while that may sound like something that would happen in a game of D&D, it doesn't always translate to good writing. In fact, if I had one criticism of this movie, it'd be that some of the screenwriting no-no's they commit like excessive exposition and spending too much time coming up with plans and not enough actually executing them could be excused with "Well that happens a lot in D&D," but that excuse can only get you so far. In fact, the payoff for all that excessing planning surely makes up for it, and they don't linger on it for so long that it distract from what the people came for.
At its core, Honor Among Thieves is a heist movie, so while there is a lot of time dedicated to setting up the dominoes, it's all worth it once we get to see them knocked down. Another of the movie's greatest strengths is how they manage to use everyone's skills and the tools at their disposal in some remarkably creative ways. At one point they get a hold of a magic staff that functions just like a Portal gun, and the amount of mileage they get out of it is absolutely incredible. Another scene involves them reviving a corpse that can only answer five questions before turning dead again, and the result are like something out of a Monty Python sketch. This is helped largely by some very well done special effects, which strikes a fine balance of practical effects and CGI, and knows which is appropriate for each scenario. For example, during a scene where Simon loses his concentration while casting an illusion spell, and the illusion turns into something out of a particularly glitchy video game that had me doubled over with laughter.
Bottom line, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is probably the best movie I could've expected out of this concept. It perfectly captures the spirit of the game, both in its triumphant highs and its unpredictable silliness. While I don't expect it to win any Oscars (although I wouldn't mind a nod for its set and costume designs), I can definitely see it encouraging more people to pick up a set of dice and start their own campaign. And that in and of itself is worth its weight in gold.
8/10
Why did you block me?
ReplyDelete