OK, so, what are the rules for me when it comes to writing a review for a movie that I only saw as part of an advanced preview? Do review embargoes count for someone like me? I’m not a professional film critic here. This blog makes no money. I certainly don’t want to get sued by a studio, and sometimes these previews require tickets to be picked up in specific ways. Now, I am aware that Paramount and Amazon Prime probably did this for the publicity. They want word of mouth to get around before the movie comes out to try and drum up interest, and while I am certainly not going to give away the ending (I try very hard to avoid anything that might be a spoiler in most of my reviews, even for older movies that have been out for decades), I just don’t know how much or how little I can say.
Then I saw that Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves already has a full Wikipedia plot summary and a Rotten Tomatoes score, so I’m probably going to be OK with my usual review here.
Bard Edgin Davris (Chris Pine) had once been a member of the Harpers, an all-purpose secret band of do-gooders, but after his wife was murdered, he took to raising his young daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman) alone. Fortunately, he got help from the barbarian woman Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez), and the pair soon took to thievery. They built up a group of their own including sorcerer Simon (Justice Smith) and rogue Forge (Hugh Grant). But when a mysterious wizard named Sofina (Daisy Head) offers them a chance to get a resurrection tablet that could revive Edgin’s wife, the group heads off on what could be one last quest. But something goes wrong. Sofina is far rougher than Edgin’s group prefers, Simon makes a run for it, Edgin and Holga are captured by the law, and Forge promises to raise Kira like she was his own child.
Edgin and Holga manage to get out later and return to find that Forge has used whatever wealth he has acquired while working with Sofina to make himself the local lord while feeding Kira lies about what her father was really after. Yeah, Forge is no true friend, so Edgin sees the only thing to do is steal the resurrection tablet from Forge’s vault during a revived gaming competition. For that, Edgin will need a team, and while he already has Holga, he needs to get Simon back and get more help from a human-distrusting shapeshifting druid named Doric (Sophia Lillis) and the somewhat legendary paladin Xenk Yendar (Regé-Jean Page ). But there’s more going on than meets the eye as Sofina is a lot more dangerous than she appears to be, and Forge’s true ambitions are still a bit unknown.
So, I’ve maybe played only a handful of sessions of the RPG, and I wouldn’t call myself the biggest fan of the 80s cartoon. That said, this was a lot of fun. Large scale fantasy movies of this type don’t happen all that often, and it helps that the material is only played so-so seriously. There are a lot of good, funny moments in this movie, and while I am sure fans of the game will pick out a lot of the things on display here, I had a good time with this. Pine gives a nice, breezy performance that fits in well with the tone of the movie, and the rest of the cast matches that overall feel just fine.
Likewise, the fight scenes are well-choreographed and the special effects largely work, better than some of the CGI monsters in the new Shazam! sequel at any rate. Yeah, the story beats are familiar, but I don’t think anyone going to a movie like this is looking for anything revolutionary. It’s a fun movie that fantasy and/or action fans should enjoy just fine when it goes into wide release at the end of March.
Grade: B+
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