Maybe I’m just old and jaded, but after watching the 2023 movie, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, I couldn’t figure out why the film wasn’t in WalMart’s $5 bin rather than on the racks at $15. This is from a fan not only of fantasy novels and movies, but someone who actually played the game back in the ’70s and has played most of the computer knock-offs since. But the film left me cold. It came across as formulaic, predictable, and flat. Worse, a rather good cast put what seemed to be a merely ordinary effort to make their characters work. How far has Hugh Grant fallen…
Chris Pine, the lead protagonist, was great in the Star Trek remakes (movies I’ve seen at least twice each). He plays a similar role to what Harrison Ford played as Indiana Jones — the cranky, joke-cracking macho, slightly inept white-guy lead who manages to get trapped yet escapes death every time — but without Ford’s panache. He’s a bard in the D&D world, a class in the game with magic and spellcasting, but evidently not in the movie where only once does he do anything magical, and that an illusion spell that doesn’t work well or for very long.
Michelle Rodriguez, of the Fast and Furious film franchise, plays the strong female barbarian companion; somewhat sullen, but loyal, with a heart of gold. As a partner with Pine, they almost make it work, but the chemistry just doesn’t quite jell and the banter seems too scripted. As the film’s fighter and warrior, she has the best action scenes, but, frankly, we never feel she’s in danger even alone against a dozen armed soldiers.
None of the characters have any depth; they’re all 2D cutouts who make the expected, but gentle quips and wisecracks at the right time. Pleasant enough, but none of them feel complete. Worst for lack of depth is the Druid character, whose story or ability is never explained.
Speaking of magic, for a world full of the stuff, the party doesn’t make as much use of it as you’d expect. There seems more fighting, running, and swordplay than magic. Sure it’s ‘swords and sorcery’ but I had expected more sorcery. Harry Potter’s world is more magic-dense. And in an era where films are replete with CGI, I expected more magic pretty much everywhere.
The plot is basically a typical D&D quest with some side quests, villain fights, dungeon crawls, and party-bonding episodes thrown in. While some of the scenes are clever and even a bit exciting, I never got the feeling there was any real doubt they’d succeed in the end. The fights and chase scenes never quite feel like the characters are seriously in danger. It was like watching a Star Wars-inspired film in a fantasy instead of futuristic light-saber-and-lasers setting.
The film isn’t without its moments of fun. There’s a fat dragon chase scene, a sneak-into-the-vault quest, a woman-barbarian-against-the-many-guards battle, the graveyard corpse-laugh scene, and a final good-magic-vs-evil-magic finale that are all entertaining, just not enough to make me want to watch it again. Conversely, the 2016 fantasy film, Warcraft: The Beginning, I’ve seen twice and will likely watch again.*
And there are a lot of things in the D&D film that never get properly explained or fleshed-out. What’s that Azkaban-like prison and why is it in the Arctic? How did Hugh Grant’s character go from a minor thief to running a kingdom? How did the protagonists get from the snowy Arctic to the temperate zone after their escape (in just their prison outfits with no weapons)? And what/where is Neverwinter city and what is it the capital of? Why does the paladin character just walk away mid-film and not have a role to play in the finale? Who are the Thayans and their Emperor-Palpatine-like leader? Why is the fat dragon trapped underground when it can clearly break out? What happened to the people in the cage during the maze game? Who are the lizard and bird people we sometimes see?
It struck me that anyone not already familiar with the D&D mythos would be in the dark about a lot of the references and backstories.
As a family-friendly film, it’s not violent (as it might have been), and there’s no real romance in it; just friendship (nothing even suggesting sexual attraction). The CGI is competent but unexceptional. It’s well-produced and looks good, although minor characters feel even less real. It’s not a bad film, just not outstanding or very memorable. I’d give it two out of five stars.
Notes:
* World of Warcraft is an online computer fantasy game (aka MMORPG: Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) that takes place in a fantasy-based, magic-using universe comparable to D&D. I thought the Warcraft film did a better job at creating characters and plot for the mythos, although it lacked the wit of the D&D film. Both WoW and D&D were inspired by the fantasy literature of authors like J.R.R. Tolkien.
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