I have a confession to make: I’ve never played Dungeons & Dragons. Never had any interest in it, either. Nothing against it or those who play, but it seems like a lot of work to me, and I just don’t have the energy for anything I might have to play over several sessions. That said, after the movie Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, I expect there will be a crush of new fans eager to dive into the classic game. And if the real thing is even half as fun as the movie, those newbies are going to enjoy the hell out of themselves.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves has spectacle, CGI chaos, a Big Bad attempting to take over the world, nice-to-look-at heroes who you know will probably not die despite the dangerous situations they find themselves in, and incredible feats from supercharged individuals. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because this movie has the same tropes and tricks as modern superhero movies that it is one. Underneath the flair, it’s a fun, funny, chill movie about four friends hanging out and going on adventures together.
After a daring prison escape, besties Edgin Darvis the bard (Chris Pine) and Holga Kilgore the barbarian (Michelle Rodriguez) set off to retrieve Edgin’s daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman) and a magical tablet that can bring his dead wife back to life (ugh, fridging). She’s been staying with Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant), their former teammate who is now the lord of a major metropolis. How did a con man become a politician? Largely with the help of another former teammate, the one who got Edgin and Holga sent to jail, Sofina (Daisy Head), a sinister wizard with deadly secrets. To prove himself worthy of Kira, Edgin and Holga build a new crew out of another ex bandmate Simon (Justice Smith), a low-level sorcerer, and Doric (Sophia Lillis), a druid who can shapeshift into an owlbear. As they search for various mystical artifacts and battle monsters and baddies, they team up with Xenk (Regé-Jean Page), a powerful yet befuddling paladin.
I’m sure there are a ton of Easter eggs and references to the game that longtime players will freak out over, but there were two aspects even I could pick out. Screenwriters Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, and Michael Gilio lean into the seemingly impenetrable rules of the game with a scene in which Xenk explains how to cross a bridge without dying. He monologues this massive wall of text dense with rules and exemptions and caveats, to the point where the audience and the rest of the thieves glaze over in confusion and boredom, and then the whole thing is immediately thrown out with a side gag that had me cackling. The plot also moves forward in a way that replicates rolling dice and making choices about what happens next. Whenever the gang is confronted with something, each throws out an idea about what to do, and then something happens to force a decision. It may not be the best of the available options, but they go with it until the next challenge. Along the way they collect magical objects that help them accomplish smaller tasks embedded into the larger quest. Such plot devices could feel clunky, but directors Daley and Goldstein keep everything flowing smoothly.
Pine, Rodriguez, Grant, and Head shine in their roles. Shout out to Smith for bringing so much depth and life into Simon. I’m excited to see where his career takes him to as he continues to mature into his talent. It’s clear the cast understood the assignment. It feels like they went into this with the intention of making a great movie, not just to cash a paycheck.
However, I wish the movie hadn’t been so cisheteronormative. You’re telling me that you can imagine a world of undead soldiers, sorcerers, and owlbears but not queer, trans, or nonbinary people? Sure, we got two queer actors (Rodriguez and Smith), but the world is predicated on cisheteronormativity and everyone in the main cast appears to be cishet. Given how big D&D is among queer people, this seems a particularly glaring oversight. It would have changed nothing about the plot to have made any of the main cast openly queer except to make it more inclusive.
We don’t often get family friendly fare at the theater these days. Back in ye olden days—aka the 80s and 90s—a lot of movies were targeted for a wide audience. It wasn’t uncommon for the whole family to go see a movie together every weekend or so. There was always something to choose from and it had broad enough appeal that everyone from your kindergartener to your grandparents could be entertained. Nowadays we have a lot of kids movies and adult movies, but not a lot that are designed for the middle ground. This movie will appeal to a lot of different audience members. Kids will love the fantasy creatures and adventure, teens will love the relationships and action, and adults will love the drama and high stakes emotions.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves gives off similar vibes as A Knight’s Tale. Both feature attractive actors playing rapscallions and rogues in vaguely medieval yet enjoyably anachronistic settings, a hammy villain who is destined to be hoisted by his own petard, a hero unafraid to make a fool of himself, and loads of silly humor and charming banter. Neither the cast nor the script take themselves too seriously, but neither do they push it into cheese or camp. It’s two hours of pleasantness, spiced with playfulness and thrills. I had a fantastic time seeing it in the theater (masked, of course), and I know I’ll be re-watching it often on the small screen when it finally hits streaming.
Alex Brown is a Hugo-nominated and Ignyte award-winning critic who writes about speculative fiction, librarianship, and Black history. Find them on twitter (@QueenOfRats), instagram (@bookjockeyalex), and their blog (bookjockeyalex.com).
