Another Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Review

Ever since Iron Man came out in 2008, the non-Disney studios have been desperate to build their own cinematic universe franchises. Outside of one or two arguable exceptions, these attempts have fallen flat on their faces. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves certainly has a Marvel-style franchise on its mind. It aims for the same sort of action that Disney has put out for the last fifteen...

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Ever since Iron Man came out in 2008, the non-Disney studios have been desperate to build their own cinematic universe franchises. Outside of one or two arguable exceptions, these attempts have fallen flat on their faces. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves certainly has a Marvel-style franchise on its mind. It aims for the same sort of action that Disney has put out for the last fifteen years full of big CGI, a heavy sprinkling of wisecracks and a dash of heart. Honor Among Thieves doesn’t entirely nail all those targets in the bullseye but it gets close enough to do the one thing a lot of those would-be franchise kickoffs forget to do; be a pretty good movie in its own right.


For Beth Rimmel's EN World review of Honor Among Thieves, click here!


Edgin the Bard (Chris Pine), Holga the Barbarian (Michelle Rodriguez), Doric the Druid (Sophia Lillis) and Simon The Sorcerer (Justice Smith) come together as an ensemble definitely cast in the Guardians of the Galaxy mold of unlikely heroes who have personal motivations to steal from bad guy Forge (Hugh Grant) and maybe save the world after, time permitting. The plot feels appropriate for a D&D with an overarching story that has quests to fulfill before it resolves. There are plenty of lore drops, the spellcasters using magic by calling out their proper D&D titles and a tease of an even Bigger Bad that definitely feels like the kind of thing they want to resolve in a few years and a few movies.

However, Honor Among Thieves works best when it borrows from an entirely unexpected franchise: Ghostbusters. That film works because the lore and worldbuilding are played relatively straight with the humor coming from the reactions of the working class heroes to all this weird supernatural stuff. That’s where the line is drawn in this film, where characters will casually drop names and places from all over the Forgotten Realms before letting the leads riff on them for a bit. Pine definitely has the best lines, though Rodriguez gets a few laughs as Pine’s surly straight man that occasionally dips into “let’s just kill ‘em all” power gamer. It’s one of the keys to the authenticity of the experience. Throw a big scary monster at most veteran D&D players and they’ll crack a few jokes as they roll initiative.

That authenticity extends to the various plans our heroes come up with in the course of the film. Though the film has really leaned into the fantasy heist movie branding, you won’t find any convenient flashbacks or tropes like “actually that bad guy was with us the whole time” here. Instead, the group comes up with a plan, whiffs a few die rolls executing the plan, then changes to an entirely different plan. There’s also a few unexpected uses of magic and magic items in the film where you can almost hear the DM’s sigh of exasperation as the good guys use the item in a way that circumvents their carefully laid out plot.

This theoretical DM gets a little bit of revenge with the appearance of Xenk the Paladin (Rege-Jean Page). This character appears in an extended second act cameo and feels like a character from a much different D&D movie. More specifically, it feels like a character from an earlier campaign who overshadows the rest of the group. Luckily, most of these moments are played for laughs, and Page is game to tackle making a classic Lawful Good character likable even if the rest of the group roll their eyes when he’s delivering lore.

Xenk’s shorter arc highlights one of the slight weaknesses of the film. Doric and Simon don’t get character traits beyond their initial ones of “earnest eco-warrior” and “sorcerer with terrible dice luck”. The leads reflect a few different philosophies of players and backstory. Edgin is mostly there to crack jokes even though his backstory is central to the film, while Holga’s player has brewed a romance that only she wants to work on. Grant is fine in his role as scummy ex-associate willing to sell out anyone for a gold piece, but his character makes a couple moves that feel less like character choices and more like “because then we’d end early for the evening after you all died.”

Also, for a film that’s supposed to be a twisty heist there aren’t really many surprises in the script: no sudden betrayals, no fake sellouts or any other staples of the heist movie. Even the low point of the second act where everyone threatens to walk away gets resolved in just a few minutes thanks to a self deprecating speech by Pine. Ultimately this works to the films' advantage as it never feels like its two hour run time. I love those regular nine hour extended viewings of Lord of the Rings like everyone else, but I’ll be excited to pop this on as a comfort movie when I want some fantasy adventure and not devote the whole day to it.

D&D: Honor Among Thieves is a family friendly action comedy with franchise dreams that hits the right notes for fans of the game and folks who just want to see Chris Pine play a lute. It may bring more players into the game. It may not. But it’s good enough to bring younger family members who might want to know about game nights or older members who always wondered what went on in the basement.
 

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Vincent55

Adventurer
First time I've seen someone not like him - was there anything particular that you didn't like about it?
Over self-confidence, know it all, self-righteous, too pretty, no humour, social skills or lack thereof, i could go on. He seemed too arrow straight and unrealistic in his personality like a robot.
 

MNblockhead

A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
Over self-confidence, know it all, self-righteous, too pretty, no humour, social skills or lack thereof, i could go on. He seemed too arrow straight and unrealistic in his personality like a robot.
I liked him, but I do think they were leaning into the stereo type as fan service. The walking towards the boulder scene being an obvious example.
 

MNblockhead

A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
My nitpicks are in the spoilers, and shouldn't surprise anyone.

In a world filled with magic and powerful fighters, there sure aren't any guards on the rich people, and they just think "oh cool, she's chanting." Also, Pine's character can't fight or cast spells or really do much of anything. The Emerald Enclave appears to have no other druids or fighters..... So, my nitpicks are about the world around the characters, which shouldn't be a surprise.

I actually quite enjoyed the attuning idea a lot, and will consider stealing that for my games.
In the prequel novel, A Druid's Call, the Emerald Enclave is fleshed out much better and it gives some more context. I think that the movie did a good job avoiding exposition or too much background and used the scene to give a good intro to the character. For lore nerds, the Prequel novel gives the character backstory and a deeper look into the Emerald Enclave.
 

Looks like a 40m/70m take for this weekend, far better than expectated returns and #1 at the box office.

Depending on who you ask this is either a stunning success (because it exceeded expectations) or a terrible crash and burn (because it's not yet made its money back).

I tend to go with the former. While it's not a Marvel sized blowout, doing better than studio expectations and being #1 are good signs they will want to make more. Paramount needs some new franchises and D&D will do nicely for them. It also seems like word of mouth is doing well, so while I'm unsure how it will do against the Super Mario movie (much less Guardians 3) I think it will stick around in the top 5 for the next month.
 

FitzTheRuke

Legend
I really liked it. My nitpicks are few:
1) Themberchaud. While I loved his rolly-polly-ness, but he's a dragon, not a dog. Why didn't he talk?
2) Edgin. For a bard, he didn't do anything magical whatsoever. Doesn't that just make him a rogue with a lute?
3) Doric. I counted NINE uses of Wildshape in a row! I have no problem with her turning into an owlbear (her DM homebrewed it for her!) but... they sure do spam limited-use abilities.
4) Beholder. Wasn't there supposed to be one in this movie? There's toys in the merch. It was in the credit-art... did it get cut for time?
5) Fights. With the exception of the "big boss battle", every single fight involved the whole party standing around while one character fights. In a "real" D&D game, the other players would get really bored, IME.

But those are just me nitpicking. I really liked it, honest!
 

I liked the movie a lot but I do think the pacing was off a little. It would have benefitted from a little more action and a tiny bit less narrative side tracks like Holga’s halfling love story which was silly at best.
 

dalisprime

Explorer
I liked the movie a lot but I do think the pacing was off a little. It would have benefitted from a little more action and a tiny bit less narrative side tracks like Holga’s halfling love story which was silly at best.
More action? The movie barely had space to breathe, it was moving from one setpiece to another. If anything, those little side tracks helped flesh out otherwise very shallow characters.
 

Vincent55

Adventurer
"Holga’s halfling love story" is a classic player type of thing, I for one had a Leonin who was a monk that fell in love with a druid and was shanghaied by pirates to serve as crew as a cook. So he became a monk/druid pirate background but took a feat for cooking, he used a large wooden spoon as a monk weapon all the time. He was a drunken monk because of the years on the pirate ship so he drank too much, the druid part was out of his longing for his lost love.
 


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