Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) Review

Time: 134 Minutes
Age Rating: M – Violence, offensive language & horror
Cast:
Chris Pine as Edgin Darvis
Michelle Rodriguez as Holga Kilgore
Regé-Jean Page as Xenk Yendar
Justice Smith as Simon Aumar
Sophia Lillis as Doric
Hugh Grant as Forge Fitzwilliam
Chloe Coleman as Kira Darvis
Daisy Head as Sofina
Director: Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley

A charming thief and a band of unlikely adventurers embark on an epic quest to retrieve a long lost relic, but their charming adventure goes dangerously awry when they run afoul of the wrong people.

I’m not familiar with Dungeons & Dragons, I never played it, but I definitely heard about it. The last attempt at making a movie based on the popular tabletop roleplaying game was back in 2000, and from what I heard it was to less than stellar results. 23 years later however, they are giving it another go. Despite a cast led by Chris Pine and being helmed by the writers and directors of the underrated Game Night, I had my reservations going into Honor Among Thieves. The trailers weren’t the best and made it look like a generic fantasy action comedy with typical MCU style quips. However, it turned out to be one of the more surprising movies from this year.

As someone who hasn’t played Dungeons & Dragons, I can’t speak with high creditability as to how accurately it captures the game, but from my limited knowledge, the movie did feel like a D&D game. The plot really isn’t anything special, so it is just as well that the writing is as great as it was. The story is cliché and predictable but is nonetheless well handled. It plays like an old fashioned fantasy adventure and strikes the perfect tone. It is fully aware of the genre it is in and doesn’t take itself so seriously, and its quite charming. There’s a lot of good and clever humour, and most of the jokes land. High fantasy action comedies are hard to pull off, but Honor Among Thieves does a wonderful job at it. For those who have seen Game Night, it is more in line with that movie than you would initially think, especially with the comedy. Despite all that, there are some surprising emotional story beats and character development that play at the right level, it’s not too serious and retains the self-awareness, but is genuine and earnest enough for you to care about the characters and what’s going on. With this being a fantasy movie, there’s a lot of worldbuilding and plenty of backstories given to characters, items and fantasy races, which is probably why the end film is 2 hours and 14 minutes long. The movie entertained me from beginning to end, but perhaps they could’ve cut down a little on the exposition.

So much of the movie is helped by the great and likable cast of characters, who have really good chemistry together and help to sell the comedy. You can tell that everyone was having a lot of fun making it. The central band of characters in Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Justice Smith and Sophia Lillis are great and fun to watch. Regé-Jean Page is a standout and steals the scenes he’s in, I’d watch a whole spin off movie focussing on his character. The villains really are pretty generic, but that’s fine for this story. Still, it helps that one of the villains played by Hugh Grant is very entertaining and funny in his scenes, even if he’s not in the movie as much as you’d like.

John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein directed this well. The visuals are good with some very nice scenery and good sets. There was a surprising number of practical effects, including animatronics. Occasionally the CGI can look really off, but that is easy to look past, and it looks really good for the most part. The action is also strong, whether it be smaller scale fights between Michelle Rodriguez and multiple people at the same time, or much larger set pieces involving dragons. There’s a lot of creativity in these scenes, especially when it comes to the camera movements. Lorne Balfe’s score is also great and fits the movie and its tone really well.  

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is a surprisingly fun, cleverly written and entertaining fantasy action comedy, with great and likeable performances and characters. I wouldn’t mind if we got more of these movies, whether it continues the story of these characters or focus on a different set of characters in the universe. Even if you were turned off by the trailers, I think Honor Among Thieves is well worth checking out, especially in a cinema with a crowd.

Advertisement

Game Night (2018) Review

Time: 100 Minutes
Age Rating: Contains violence, sexual references & offensive language
Cast
Jason Bateman as Max
Rachel McAdams as Annie
Kyle Chandler as Brooks
Billy Magnussen as Ryan
Sharon Horgan as Sarah
Lamorne Morris as Kevin
Kylie Bunbury as Michelle
Jesse Plemons as Gary Kingsbury
Michael C. Hall as The Bulgarian
Director: John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein

Max (Jason Bateman) and Annie’s (Rachel McAdams) weekly game night gets kicked up a notch when Max’s brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler) arranges a murder mystery party — complete with fake thugs and federal agents. So when Brooks gets kidnapped, it’s all supposed to be part of the game. As the competitors set out to solve the case, they start to learn that neither the game nor Brooks are what they seem to be. The friends soon find themselves in over their heads as each twist leads to another unexpected turn over the course of one chaotic night.

I wasn’t expecting much from Game Night to be honest. From the trailer is looked like it could be a fun but overall passable comedy. Also, although the directors were involved with writing Spider-Man Homecoming, they also did 2015’s Vacation, which from what was a real misfire of a comedy. However, Game Night was actually a lot better than I thought it would be. It was entertaining and funny throughout, and the performances by the cast and the work by the directors only made it better.

From start to finish, Game Night is really entertaining and not once misses a beat, it never feels slow or uninteresting. This movie takes so many twists and turns that you aren’t really expecting. Granted at times there are so many twists that I have a feeling I might need to rewatch the movie to make sure that they actually makes sense to a degree and if they’re not just throwing in twists for the sake of twists. Also, it is a comedy, so even though the movie gives you things to care about with the characters and the plot, it doesn’t forget what it is, and at times even pokes fun at itself. It doesn’t try to be anything more than what it is, which is a dark comedy. And on the comedy, Game Night is really funny, and its humour is really effective and works very well. On another note, there is another scene after the credits to stick around for, I’m just bringing this up because I missed it myself.

Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams are the leads and they are really good here, they share great chemistry and are quite believable as a couple. Jason Bateman does his usual comedic thing here and he is good at it and he’s good here but it’s Rachel McAdams who was actualy one of the stand outs of the movie, she was particularly good. The supporting actors was also really good, with a cast that includes Kyle Chandler, Billy Magnussen, Sharon Horgan, Lamorne Morris and Kylie Bunbury. Jesse Plemons is especially a scene stealer as a bit of an awkward neighbour of Bateman and McAdams’s, Plemons at times produced some of the biggest laughs of the movie.

The direction of this movie by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein is particularly great and actually one of the most stand out parts of the movie. It’s very stylised and edited well together. The action sequences, when they happen are actually quite well directed. Apparently Francis Daley and Goldstein are going to direct The Flash movie and given their work here, I’m now totally on board for it. Cliff Martinez always makes very memorable and stand out scores and Game Night was no exception, it really added to the movie a great deal.

Game Night is actually a much better movie than I thought it would be, I had a lot of fun with it and don’t have too many problems with it. The cast was great, the direction by Francis Dalyey and Goldstein was surprisingly stylish and entertaining, the movie is pretty fun overall. Even if you might feel that the trailer doesn’t look all that good I still highly recommend giving Game Night a chance, I am sure that it’ll surprise you in how good it actually is.