Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Movie Review

To say that the original 2000 Dungeons & Dragons movie was a critical failure is an understatement. By contrast, if the new movie, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves isn't a cinematic natural 20, it's at least a 19. PLEASE NOTE: This review contains spoilers!

Old and New​

The contrast between the two movies isn't just drastic, it also highlights why one succeeds while another failed. Courtney Solomon, producer/director of the 2000 film, used very little recognizable D&D content, chose Izmer as the location, and changed a lot of what it did use. The tone tried to be epic and funny in an unfortunate combination that did neither.

For D&D:HAT, producer/director/writers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein capture the feeling of a good D&D campaign – adventure, heroics, humor, and enough heart to make you care about what happens to the characters. While firmly grounding movie in Faerun's Sword Coast, it's never heavy handed. Characters don't name every spell or item used unless it's relevant and logical.

Set in the Forgotten Realms​

Spoiler

No actual knowledge of D&D or the Forgotten Realms is needed to enjoy the movie, so if you want to bring non-gamers to see it, they'll be just fine.

At the same time, the movie effortlessly establishes how Faerun is different from other fantasy settings like Middle-Earth or Westeros. Aarakocra, dragonborn, and tabaxi are just a few of the species depicted in addition to elves, tieflings, dwarves, etc.

The movie starts in Revel's End in Icewind Dale and soon provides a perfect in-story reason to recap Edgin (Chris Pine) and Holga's (Michelle Rodriguez) back story. This, along with how they met Forge Hugh Grant) and Simon (Justice Smith), are covered in detail in the prequel novel, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: Road to Neverwinter, but the movie explains everything you need to know if you haven't read the book. Soon, a personal yet epic quest begins to find the objects necessary to right a wrong, stop a plot by the Red Wizards of Thay, and reunite Edgin with his daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman), taking them to Neverwinter, the Underdark, Uthgardt Elk Tribe territory, and more.

And just like most D&D campaigns, plans are made and go astray before the crew improvises a solution. There's even one part that subtly reminds me of players ignoring a DM's plans to go off and do something else.

Simon brings Doric into the team, despite her reservations about humans. In her prequel novel, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: Druid's Call, a mysterious, human-led, well-financed group are cutting down a forest. The book's unresolved question of who and why is answered in the movie.

Daley and Goldstein are long-time D&D players, and it shows in how they constructed the story and brought Faerun to life. Yet while the movie mostly follows D&D rules, it does indulge in “the rule of cool” a few times, most notably Doric's ability to wildshape into an owlbear. A reason was provided for it in her prequel novel, but they're really doing it because it does look awesome. In fact, there's one scene where owlbear Doric thwamps a character in a way that might become as popular in pop culture as Hulk's thwamping of Loki.

Why Are They Working Together?​

The trailers raised questions as to why Regé-Jean Page's paladin would be working with a crew of thieves. The movie explains it well, and Page is terrific as Xenk, perfectly establishing how paladins are both useful and annoying. Scenes between Page and Pine also beautifully illustrate how different two Charisma-based characters can be.

I also love how they depict Holga. At a table, barbarians are often played as just brute force fighters. Holga shows how situational awareness, practical ingenuity, and brute force are even more effective combined.

The movie contains both actor and character cameos I won't spoil. Just pay attention to some of the other characters in the games sequence for some of them.

Should You See It?​

Based on the terrific job they did with the Spider-Man: Homecoming script, I was hopeful that Daley and Goldstein would pull off a good D&D movie. They actually exceeded my expectations. The movie is incredibly fun, and I genuinely laughed out loud at some dialogue. It simultaneously tugged at my heart in places, and in legitimate ways since it had laid the groundwork beforehand.

The movie is a self-contained story that leaves a ton of room for sequels. If one or two can match this, not only will it be a well-established franchise, but could also spin off into other parts of the D&D multiverse.

Stick around for a mid-credit scene that's just perfect in every way.

I can't wait until D&D:HAT is available for purchase. I know there are things in the background that I didn't quite catch. The mix of being an incredibly fun movie with being able to rewind it to catch all the Easter eggs and casual references makes it a must-buy for me.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves hits a perfect tone and blend of adventure, heart, and humor. A+

 

[JohnSnow]

The Halflings were a bit weak, LotR did it more convincing (at least in memory,who knows, maybe it's like my memories of old 8 Bit games and not actually that good). But it was in a weird way evoking the feeling of the Dungeon Master improvising something in the game - like the DM changing his voice or imitating an accent and not really getting it right, but you get what they're doing. Kinda the visual equivalent of that.

The problems with the halflings isn't an FX problem so much as a lore one. It's the thing that was noted when they tried re-doing them in 4e.

A normally proportioned "2 to 3-foot tall" Halfling is REALLY short and small. Hobbits look "better" because 1) they tend to be kinda pudgy, and 2) they're actually "3 to 4 feet tall." Merry and Pippin's heights are noted, by Pippin, as being 3'6" and 3'7", respectively, before the Ent Draught kicks Pippin up to 3'8". That may not sound like much, but it's a big difference in terms of how "reasonable" they look in reality.

By way of comparison, Willow actors Warwick Davis and Phil Fondacaro (Vonkar) are both 3'6", Billy Barty (who played the High Aldwin) was 3'9", and both Hervé Villachaize and Danny Woodburn are/were 3'11". Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones) is a towering 4'4". And they all have dwarfism, which tends to make them all a bit more heavily built than a D&D halfling.

Standard D&D Halflings are, frankly, ridiculously small, and nothing you do can make that look totally natural.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

A+ is high praise. Nick Cage would be impressed. Is the above quote really the only thing resembling a flaw?

The owlbear actually looked and moved poorly--I can't usually spot CGI but the owlbear was obvious CGI because e.g. it was cartoonishly inertialess. The bear from Cocaine Bear was 30x better. Maybe they should just have used the Cocaine Bear bear model instead of an owlbear. It wouldn't have changed the story at all.

It's a fairly small flaw overall. Other minor flaws exist (Edgin's backstory chemistry with his wife is not great; some of my friends are quite disappointed with how little character development, in their minds, Doric and Simon got) but for the most part the people who made the movie for Hasbro did great, whereas the people who wrote the 5E stat blocks and magic items for WotC really dropped the ball.

When I saw Guardians of the Galaxy I immediately set out to recruit my friends and family to see it, because "it's not a comic book movie!" (Just a good, funny movie.) Honor Among Thieves doesn't rise to that level, but if the goal to is set expectations for what D&D is like (of any flavor or ruleset including Pathfinder, AD&D, Gamma World, or Dungeon Fantasy--any game that can be loosely described as "kill monsters and take their stuff"), then it does the job better than I ever expected, while also being a fun movie.

Nice job, scriptwriters and actors!

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I have no interest in watching a movie that intentionaly emasculate men.
I was really hyped until that part was published, that coupled with the OGL debacle was the last nail in the coffin for me with WotC.

Have no fear of the WotC conversion of the movie then--WotC emasculates the women! For some reason they give Holga lower damage than Elgin and Simon (on top of barely-higher HP similar AC), whereas in the movie she makes both of them practically look like noncombatants.

On a more serious note, and FWIW, the movie wasn't MCU-level ridiculous about making Holga tougher than Edgin. She wasn't a superhuman She-hulk, more just someone who is quite good at beating up mooks. IMO comparable to a typical 8th level Barbarian, whereas Edgin is comparable to a 3rd level Rogue played by a player who doesn't know the rules well enough to use Cunning Action or wield a finesse weapon for Sneak Attack.

There was a friendly NPC named Zenk (male BTW) who is much tougher than Holga, but like high-level NPCs everywhere, he stuck around only long enough to get them better gear and then took off, saying "this is YOUR quest." But because of him I totally believe the directors when they say they didn't emasculate Edgin out of "wokeness."

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I think Edgin is probably the most difficult PC to represent for this movie. In many ways they're minimizing the magic potential of most of the characters which I understand because the movie has a broader target than just D&D players so they kept that aspect of it simple.

I will also say that the movie tries to balance the focus of the movie to different members of the group, giving each a spotlight. Even though Edgin is in the leader role, I feel like the other PCs were more than just sidekicks.

Edgin = Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith from the A-Team, if Hannibal were still only 3rd level and not good at planning yet.

The others were definitely more than just sidekicks, but he comes up with plans and sets the agenda. He overlooks quite a lot of much better plans in the process, but oh well.

E.g. when they're all discouraged about Simon not attuning the helmet, and everyone is walking away like "oh, no, I guess we can't get through the door, might as well go home now," he could have said, "well, let's go get Kira at least. Maybe we can set up a trade with Forge after that--the Helm of Disjunction for the Tablet of Resurrection, which he clearly isn't using."

 

[wicked cool]

I give the movie a B+. Acting was an A and so was script reminded me of guardians and mummy combined). I did not see the ending (before the endung) coming

Special effects at times were not great but better than most Disney plus stuff

 

[MGibster]

There was a friendly NPC named Zenk (male BTW) who is much tougher than Holga, but like high-level NPCs everywhere, he stuck around only long enough to get them better gear and then took off, saying "this is YOUR quest." But because of him I totally believe the directors when they say they didn't emasculate Edgin out of "wokeness."

Even if they did, I wouldn't care. The primary job a movie has is to keep me entertained and D&D did the job. I did notice Dora and Holga doing the heavy lifting in regards to combat, but I was too busy enjoying the movie to put a lot of thought into looking for some sort of "woke" agenda. I don't really care about special effects either. Don't get me wrong, I like to see pretty things on the screen, but I've seen too many movies with great special effects that fell flat because I didn't care about the characters or the stories.

All in all I found the D&D movie to be enjoyable and I'd recommend to anyone who likes adventure movies.

 

[MGibster]

I should add another thing I liked about the movie: There was no stupid and unncessary romance. Now, now, hear me out. I'm not against romance in a movie, but so very often it's ham-fisted, doesn't add anything of value, and is very often shoe horned into an action movie because some producer thinks this is what puts women's butts in seats. (See the romance plots of movies like Pearl Harbor and Major League as examples of how not to do it.)

Holga and Edgin obviously care for one another, but there was never any threat of smooching on account of Edgin's weird lips. Yeah, there's Simon and Doric, but he didn't spend time pining (or creeping) for her and didn't even "win" her in the end (again, see Major League). Doric just became receptive to being courted because Simon's got that new swagger because of his big magic energy. So, yeah, I liked the characters, though I felt Doric and Simon could have been a bit more developed. Like why was Simon holding himself back?

Major League: Okay, it's a 34 year old movie and a lot of you might not have seen it. Jake, as played by Tom Berenger, basically stalks his ex-girlfriend in an attempt to win her over before she gets married. Is her fiance a jerk? We never really find out. For some inexplicable reason, Jake wins her back by the end of the movie. Major League is a pretty good movie, you can cut out this sub-plot and you'd literally only improve the movie.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

For people talking about Elgin ... This is not a movie that's trying to replicate D&D exactly.

Spoiler

The druid only does wild shape stuff, the sorcerer is struggling to accept his magic. Having Elgin cast bard spells (or the druid for that matter) would have detracted from the pressure on Simon and the importance of him fully embracing his magic.

Xenk did cool stuff, but it was pretty subtle, not casting Bigby's Hand flashy spells.

The target audience is not D&D players, or at least not only D&D players. The goal was not to accurately depict everything D&D PC's do, but to capture the spirit and feel of the game.

I think they did a pretty good job of that.

Given the spells the character has assigned on D&DBeyond, he could be casting spells and not be noticed.

 

[Oofta]

Given the spells the character has assigned on D&DBeyond, he could be casting spells and not be noticed.

The directors actually discussed this a bit. If there's a sequel with the same characters that Edgin would be explicitly shown to cast spells.

 

[Scott Christian]

Yeah, there's Simon and Doric, but he didn't spend time pining (or creeping) for her and didn't even "win" her in the end (again, see Major League). Doric just became receptive to being courted because Simon's got that new swagger because of his big magic energy. So, yeah, I liked the characters, though I felt Doric and Simon could have been a bit more developed. Like why was Simon holding himself back?

Almost every scene these two are in, where they were not in mortal danger or facing some extraneous threat, is devoted to him pining after her. Don't get me wrong, I really liked the movie. And it actually got better the second time around. But, this was the sticking point for me during my first viewing, and it became the only sticking point during the second viewing. From her not even recognizing him (? like how many people are pining after a druid in a recluse enclave that turns into an owlbear and quips like a Hollywood 17-year-old Dawson Creek "intellectual"), to him trying to sell the whole thing as a second date, to him instantly shutting up about it when she tells him to even though he just countered a time stop spell! All of that seemed so forced to me, and in truth, not needed. A slow burn, maybe a glance, a smile, a reaching out of a hand while walking through the Underdark, and that would have much more subtly set the mood than this CW romantic plot they tried to squeeze in.

And I say this again. I thought the movie was great. I liked it all, and easily overlooked this problem. But I only bring this up because I find it refutes (at least in my opinion) this:

There was no stupid and unncessary romance.

But outside of that, I agree with everything @MGibster said.