Jonah Naplan   April 1, 2023

I don’t think I’ve ever played a single game of Dungeons & Dragons. Yes, I know what it is—in fact I have a group of friends who love to play it. I once watched my best friend create his own character on the DnD website, before joining the Dungeons & Dragons club at my school. It’s a phenomenon. And from what I can piece together, it’s a game driven primarily by the wildest figments of the players’ imagination. There’s no winning or losing, or a clear objective, there’s a sheer lacking of rules, with death, destruction, and power. Maybe I’ll understand the concept someday.

What I do feel I very much understand is movies—how they shake us, how they shape us, and how they entertain us. “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” comes to us from John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, the duo who directed “Game Night,” a rip roaringly funny comedy. Their newest movie falls short of delivering the first two items on the checklist above, but soars at accomplishing the third. But that’s not a complaint. Nothing about a Dungeons & Dragons movie should scream “impactful.” What it does absolutely convey though is bundles and bundles of fun, that’s enjoyable for non-game players to watch, and I can only imagine is an even bigger treat for connoisseurs. And the best part of all is that I thought the movie looked quite awful from the trailers. Alas, it was no such thing.

“Honor Among Thieves” follows the best Chris Pine you’ll see in any movie from the past few years as Edgin Darvis, a man who becomes a criminal when trying to steal an item that can bring his wife back to life after she’s killed by a group known as the Red Wizards. Edgin is imprisoned with Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez) a fellow former member of a group called the Harpers, whom Edgin has an expansive backstory with. After Edgin’s wife was slaughtered, Holga dropped her stoic barbarian side for a little while and helped to raise his daughter, Kira (Chloe Coleman). Kira, however, has been borderline kidnapped and lied to by Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant), a former ally of Edgin’s. Forge has now partnered with a vicious Red Wizard named Sofina (Daisy Head), who looks like a combination of Voldemort and Hela from “Thor: Ragnarok.”

Unlike the game, “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” has a pretty straightforward objective. Edgin wants to rescue Kira, retaliate against Forge and prevent the Red Wizards from wreaking any more havoc. But Edgin may as well have said the line, “We’re gonna need a team,” as the film enters its second act. The mission reconvenes them with old friends—an unremarkable young wizard named Simon (Justice Smith), a shapeshifting druid named Doric (Sophia Lillis), and a charismatic paladin named Xenk Yendar (Regé-Jean Page), the funniest character in the film because of his tendency to take commonplace words and phrases literally. Yes, we’ve seen characters much like this one before, but they rarely feel this refreshing.

Xenk is only in a few scenes during the midsection, and isn’t actually present at all during the film’s climax. However, his character, and the way others react to his character is when the underappreciated script and dialogue by Daley and Goldstein gets a chance to shine its brightest. This is a surprisingly funny and lighthearted movie, yet even more surprising is the fact that most of that reason should be credited to the sheer simplicity of the jokes. I’m bemused to say I laughed at several of them. My favorite scene takes place at a graveyard, as our heroes are granted the ability to ask corpses five questions before they go back to being corpses. It comes off as stupid, but I didn’t mind. Much of “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” is quite stupid, but it’s that glee in being laid back that makes this film all the more fitting for families to see and kids to enjoy. More thoughtful children will appreciate the use of projectile potatoes in the third act.

Many big blockbusters of the 2020s have leaned more towards the darker, grittier side of reality, and even when they receive a PG-13 rating, they’re still much scarier for children than they used to be. Both Marvel and DC have more recently done an improved job (for better or for worse) of lessening the blood and gore, and centering more on the type of entertainment that families can enjoy. “Honor Among Thieves” is the best of both worlds. There are themes of death, and blood, and betrayal, but it is also a movie that shows how deeply silly this all really is.

“Honor Among Thieves” is also a wonderfully imaginative movie, one filled with spectacular setpieces, breathtaking battles, and clever traps. The production design is enrapturing. In seeing the movie with three of my friends, they begged me to write about a scene they thought was really cool. The dream team has gained a weapon that allows them to manifest a portal wherever they see fit, and before an exciting arena scene, they commit a heist. Using the portal stick, they hop into a carriage bound for the arena, and use a circular painting to plant their gateway. It’s a fantastically contrived sequence that will have you rubbing your eyes with realism. Another exquisite sequence is the heavily marketed arena scene, featuring a maze that is filled with several imaginative surprises and puzzles.

But what does all of this say about whether or not the film is worth paying money to go see in the theater? I will admit. There’s not a whole lot else to “Honor Among Thieves” besides its grand ideas, and cool visuals. There’s a lot of style here, and a respectable amount of substance, but for a movie that runs at 134 minutes, it’s a little bit too dragged out. But it’s far from tired. Many fantasy or adventure movies can so often fall into the category of snooze that plagues their pacing and inherent nature of being. Those movies are exhausted. This film has energy.

Now playing in theaters.