Official attempts to squeeze film and television art out of the “Dungeons & Dragons” property have been a roll of the dice.
A 2002 movie and a sequel largely disappointed and disappeared. And that’s about it, unless one goes back to the early and mid-’80s and the excellent animated series “Dungeons & Dragons,” a show whose characters were as colorful as their costumes. Plus, it had charm, largely thanks to a little unicorn. “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,” directed and co-written by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, whose writing credits include “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” is the latest — and most expensive — attempt to bring some cinematic respectability. to the long-standing brand.
“Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” kicked off this year’s South by Southwest Film and Television Festival in Austin, Texas, opening in theaters on March 31. The film stars Chris Pine as a part-time bard and full-time thief, and seeks to capture the often jovial but tense feeling of a “Dungeons & Dragons” gaming session. Previously, that has been a challenge for Hollywood.
Today, though the fantasy genre and the game itself have enjoyed a resurgence, “Dungeons & Dragons” influences film and television more often than it leads. Check out the recent “Arcane,” the Netflix series based on the “League of Legends” video game whose debut episode had a light-hearted camaraderie that echoed the magic and robbery of the old RPG. Even the “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies and their missions to save the world with artifacts have felt indebted to the “anything goes” magic of “D&D.”
And that’s saying nothing of the popular “real game” videos and podcasts that show people playing through their adventures, including the “Critical Role” web series, which led to the well-received animated series “The Legend of Vox.” Machine”. “Dungeons & Dragons” remains a powerful and guiding force in pop culture due to its often joyful unpredictability and inviting creativity.
That’s because the game lives largely in our imaginations. Their worlds and characters are guides for us to create and improvise, and that also makes adapting challenging. While the “D&D” brand has had its share of popular books (the original “Dragonlance” titles by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman are in good standing, as are many of RA Salvatore’s Forgotten Realms novels), the world is increasingly complex and mostly lives in the heads of its players.
We saw a screening of “Honor Among Thieves” before it premiered at SXSW. While a proper review will be posted, here are five quick reactions to the movie. Our goal is to be as spoiler-free as possible, and we won’t reveal some of the movie’s biggest Easter eggs or nods to the “D&D” story, but please be aware that there may be some light reveals in the text below. continuation.
The tone is upbeat and lively: Despite a two-hour runtime, “Honor Among Thieves” feels fairly light, transitioning from one mission to another relatively quick. Pine, as the pure-hearted thief Edgin, is in full charm mode, and Holga, Michelle Rodriguez’s brutal barbarian fighter, is also often played for laughs. “Honor Among Thieves” is not, for example, a serious “Game of Thrones”, opting for a more familiar inflection.
The film also makes an effort to capture the togetherness and togetherness of the game. Often before the action sequences, there is a time for Pine to lead a brainstorming session on how best to strategize for battle. As regularly happens at the “D&D” table, all eyes turn to the wizard, in this case, Judge Smith’s “regular wizard”, Simon, leading Simon to say in one exasperated moment that he’s tired of that everyone thinks that magic can cure all ills. And yet, magic often saves the day, whether it’s a much-used “here-there” staff, essentially a teleportation item, or Sophia Lillis’ shape-shifting druid character Doric.
In what felt like a nod to the game and a measure of helping the public, when new items or magic are introduced, they are displayed on the screen with rules: this is how it works, here are its limitations. All it takes is one roll of the dice, but Edgin and the team often go through multiple get out plans to simulate those bad rolls. Fortunately, when a spell is cast, someone will usually announce what it is. Keep in mind that attaching a rope to a weapon often doesn’t work.
Are there dragons here? Not that many, really, and we won’t spoil the fiercest of the lot. But it felt like a solid 45 to 55 minutes before we got our first glimpse of a dragon. There is also no proper dungeon, although there are caves and we can explore the depths of an arena. But fear not, there are creatures galore, and in a floating opening we encountered an aarakocra, a race of humanoid bird, and what appeared to be a rather tame reptilian humanoid: I’m told it’s a snake-man known as a yuan-ti. . The aarakocra is especially well done, even if the character is, at most in “Honor Among Thieves,” used as a punch line in a joke.
There’s so much more, including a mighty owlbear, which is what you’d imagine and, yes, a tabaxi, and the human-like cat is just as adorable as you’d expect. The tabaxi scene also elicits one of the biggest laughs in the film, courtesy of Simon’s attempts to woo Doric. One qualm, and this is an appropriate minor spoiler, is that a dragon is used as a punch line for a fat joke, and I wish the movie had been smarter than that. While I respect the filmmaker’s desire to exceed expectations, even with legendary “D&D” characters like dragons, making fun of obesity wasn’t the piece.
Ultimately, the downplaying of the dragons allows the displacer beast, a black panther-like creature with menacing tails that extend from its shoulders, to steal the spotlight.
The villains, the NPCs. There are a few twists and, revealed early, a villain behind a villain. We’ll refrain from final motivations, but keep in mind that Hugh Grant’s Forge is played to overly manipulative extremes. Grant, like Pine, Smith, and generally the entire cast, seems to be having a ball in the light medieval costumes, so much so that “D&D” never really gets tense. That’s not a criticism, as the filmmakers go for a feather-light touch, allowing for a poignant, belated moment to surprise.
The plot kicks off with a dead wife trope, but the quest for revenge at least allows the movie to have plenty of characters whose motivations aren’t immediately clear. Regé-Jean Page’s Xenk is someone who is initially treated with suspicion, but fans will know that a knight paladin ultimately fights for good. Page plays the character with an uptight stoicism that allows him to be the no-nonsense man for a series of Pine’s Edgin jokes, but the character felt like a nod to the gamers’ table. Just when our heroes are feeling overwhelmed, a higher-class fighter arrives to help everyone level up. And it leads to a scene clearly inspired by the “Indiana Jones” movies.
Every playgroup is different. One of the most popular screen titles associated with “Dungeons & Dragons” is Prime Video’s “The Legend of Vox Machina,” an animated adaptation of an original campaign performed by the folks at Critical Role. But just because they both fall under the “D&D” umbrella doesn’t mean they’re comparable, even beyond the inherent differences between a movie and an animated series.
“Vox Machina” is intended for mature audiences, which means it features a lot of profanity, graphic violence, and sex. The show manages to capture a level of unpredictability that can only be achieved through the decisions and rolls of the dice when playing the game.
“Honor Among Thieves” takes aim at the broader appeal of the more familiar PG-13. That said, they both channel a similar irreverence for fantasy adventures and make the case for always having a paladin in your party.
Times staff writer Tracy Brown contributed to this story.
