Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

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CTPhipps
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Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Post by CTPhipps »

https://beforewegoblog.com/movie-review ... g-thieves/

DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES made me tear up a bit at the end. It was an involuntary reaction, I certainly didn’t intend for it to happen, but it’s something that occurred nevertheless. Against my better judgement, I came to care about these characters and whether they managed to make it through the end of the movie. So, in the words of Rick and Morty, “You son of a bitch, I’m in.”

The movie isn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination but it is recognizably and explicitly Dungeons and Dragons. Which is a harder thing to embody than many people might think. Dungeons and Dragons isn’t a setting by itself but a method of creating and playing a setting. This is the problem of previous adaptations because you can play any fantasy setting with D&D rules but you can’t just say, “Dungeons and Dragons is the setting.” Here, it’s the Forgotten Realms and I kind of wish they’d called it Forgotten Realms or Neverwinter Nights because either of those titles would have been appropriate as well.

Energy-wise, this is a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie for better and worse. I honestly compare this most to Paul Rudd’s Ant Man movie in terms of rough mixture between family melodrama, quips, and action. Well, this has a lot more dragons in it and I’ll give that is an impressive boost over Ant Man. It’s a movie about a failed father trying to reconnect with his daughter, a heist, and an oddball crew of misfits. So let’s say Ant Man meets Guardians of the Galaxy meets dragons. Which, yes, is probably why I love this movie against my better judgement. Neither of those films are my favorite Marvel films but throw in an owlbear and the Red Wizards of Thay? Yeah, now we’re cooking with fireballs.

The premise is somewhat overly complicated at the start with, essentially, an entire movie’s worth of backstory in the prologue that could have been the first part of a trilogy. Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine) is a Harper who turns to thievery after his do-goodery gets his wife killed by the Red Wizards. He ends up as heterosexual but platonic partners with Holga (Michelle Rodriguez) and raises his daughter, Kira, with her.

Hearing there’s a magical tablet that can raise his wife from the dead, Edgin robs the Harpers and gets sent to magical prison with Holga when the heist goes wrong. They break out and decide to get Kira back from their partner who, obviously, betrayed them but is raising the girl as his own.

This is just the prologue.

The movie is mostly a heist film with our leads recruiting bumbling sorcerer Simon Aumar (Justice Smith) and kickass Tiefling druid Doric (Sophia Lillis) to help take down Lord Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant) as well as his Red Wizard partner Sofina (Daisy Head). They go from action scene and comedy scene to action scene to comedy scene with the movie never really taking a break. Some of the comedy is stupid like a scene where they waste their Speak with the Dead questions while other comedy is stupid but entertaining as hell (Holga’s ex being a halfling? Eh. Holga’s ex taking up with another Amazonian barbarian? HILARIOUS).

The movie is utterly drenched with fanservice and you’ll be unable to turn off your brain from the, “I recognize that, they said the thing, I recognize that, reference to that thing I know!” Memberberries (i.e. things you remember from your childhood) are a pretty low form of humor perfected by Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Iron Man but it works on the nerd side of my brain. When they mention Simon is Elminster’s descendant, I went, “Yeah, him and half of Faerun” and realized they’d gotten me.

I feel almost bad about how mad I am for unabashedly loving this movie. I am deeply cynical about Hasbro’s handling of D&D and mad at them for a dozen things ranging from the OGL to the novels being abandoned. However, this movie has an morbidly obese red dragon, the cast of the Eighties Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, and Szass Frigging Tam (who is the villain of my current D&D campaign). What am I supposed to do with that? I can’t stay mad at a movie trying this hard to entertain me.

The cast is a bunch of bumbling misfits and everyone looks like an idiot but Doric (Michelle Rodriguez gets a lot of mileage out of being a dumb barbarian), yet I can’t complain about that since it’s my style of humor too. They’re also competent when it counts. I even like Hugh Grant in this as he basically shows what he would have been like if he’d play Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets. Literally my only complaints are the fact that I wasn’t aware Faerun was enlightened enough to have prisons with a healthy pardon system and the fact movie dragged in literally two places.

See the film.
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Davies
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Re: Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Post by Davies »

Ah, dammit, Charles.

Tell me that there aren't giant spiders in the thing, and you've sold at least one ticket.
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Re: Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

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Davies wrote: Mon Mar 20, 2023 5:28 am Ah, dammit, Charles.

Tell me that there aren't giant spiders in the thing, and you've sold at least one ticket.
No spiders, just wholesome zombies, liches, mimics, obese red dragons, and displacer beasts.

:)
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Re: Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Post by Davies »

... so I guess I'm watching two movies this April. My life is so hard. <disconsolate sigh>
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Re: Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Post by greycrusader »

I admittedly thought the film had a definite "lackluster at best" feel to given how little the studio has pushed it, along with the slight cheese-factor present in the trailers; good to hear from a trusted source that Honor Among Thieves is genuinely a good, solidly entertaining movie of its type, and not in a "so bad, it's good" way. The "Dungeons and Dragons" source material ISN'T easy to pull off, Charles-you're completely correct about that. While the game mechanics have been used to simulate a wide variety of fantasy milieus, as you stated, there's a certain feel to the treatment that has to come through in order for a fantasy film to reflect Dungeons and Dragons. There have to be daring heroes, comradery, over-the-top evils to be overcome, fearsome monsters, and magical treasures stashed in improbably stocked castles, ruins, or undermountain fortresses.

Too self-consciously ironic or "meta", and the charm is lost; too earnest and the material seems antiquated and absurd. And given the fantasy doesn't spring from a "classic (or at least critically-acclaimed) piece of literature, there's always the challenge of putting a compelling original story onscreen. But apparently the filmmakers pulled off the challenge, with enough recognizable elements from the game's long history to please long-time fans/players without getting so dense the more casual, non-genre moviegoers will still be entertained. So I'll be watching this one!

All my best!
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Re: Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

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greycrusader wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 3:34 am I admittedly thought the film had a definite "lackluster at best" feel to given how little the studio has pushed it, along with the slight cheese-factor present in the trailers; good to hear from a trusted source that Honor Among Thieves is genuinely a good, solidly entertaining movie of its type, and not in a "so bad, it's good" way. The "Dungeons and Dragons" source material ISN'T easy to pull off, Charles-you're completely correct about that. While the game mechanics have been used to simulate a wide variety of fantasy milieus, as you stated, there's a certain feel to the treatment that has to come through in order for a fantasy film to reflect Dungeons and Dragons. There have to be daring heroes, comradery, over-the-top evils to be overcome, fearsome monsters, and magical treasures stashed in improbably stocked castles, ruins, or undermountain fortresses.

Too self-consciously ironic or "meta", and the charm is lost; too earnest and the material seems antiquated and absurd. And given the fantasy doesn't spring from a "classic (or at least critically-acclaimed) piece of literature, there's always the challenge of putting a compelling original story onscreen. But apparently the filmmakers pulled off the challenge, with enough recognizable elements from the game's long history to please long-time fans/players without getting so dense the more casual, non-genre moviegoers will still be entertained. So I'll be watching this one!

All my best!
Thanks for the trust!
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Re: Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Post by catsi563 »

Just saw it and Enjoyed the everloving HECK out of it,

So many easter eggs and inside jokes for someone like me whose been into the hobby for decades, And the cast was spot on in every aspect one can think of. the game references were such that i was basically rollplaying the game out in my head while simultaneously enjoying the movie. And even better you dont have to have ever played the game or read one of the books it comes off as a solid and fun sword and sorcery action adventure

Highly recommend a theater showing well worth price of admission
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Re: Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Post by Davies »

I ... think I'm not capable of being as enthusiastic about most things as I used to be, among them Hollywood movies, so I can't say I give it the high recommendation that it's gotten here. But it was fun and worthwhile, though I found a certain set of cameos to be a bit much, and part of the climax to be really annoying.
Spoiler
Look, we know that they're going to use the tablet on Holga. It's been obvious that Zia wasn't going to be resurrected since the middle of the movie. There's no need to draw it out with those flashbacks.
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Re: Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Post by kirinke »

i saw it. The Paladin was great. Not a douche, but a stiff, yet completely nice guy. I mean, Paladin classic all the way. Lol. It had to go the way it did. I mean, it's a Forgotten Realms D&D adventure they made into a freaking movie. I loved it. :lol:
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