Image Credit: Paramount Pictures
I have a confession to make…I am a nerd. I watched Star Trek religiously in middle school and high school when The Original Series was on Netflix, I have piles and piles of books I need to read, as well as many video games taking up storage space on my PS4. Do these things automatically make me a nerd? Maybe, or maybe it’s the attitude toward stereotypically nerd things.
I also play Dungeons and Dragons. Well, I try to. They say one of the biggest enemies in DnD is not the dungeons ordragons, but scheduling and conflicts. Needless to say, I’m still well aware of the game and was still super excited for Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.
Before I really begin this review, I admit that I broke one of my few rules for watching a new movie: going in with expectations. I find that when I go into a movie with little to no expectations, I enjoy it so much more and tend to have a much more enjoyable time watching it (that’s why I loved Illumination’s How The Grinch Stole Christmas so much).
Maybe it’s because I’m an active DnD player myself, or maybe it’s because I’ve been really really involved with my scriptwriting classes and have become obsessed with storytelling, but one thing I really really wanted to have happen…didn’t.
We’ll get to that, though! There will be spoilers in this review, so beware!
The story follows bard Edgin (Chris Pine), barbarian Holga (Michelle Rodriguez), scared sorcerer Simon (Justice Smith), and druid Doric (Sophia Lillis) as they go on quest after quest to try and find magical item after magical item, in hopes of rescuing Edgin’s daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman) from the group’s former teammate, rogue Forge (Hugh Grant), retrieving the Tablet of Reawakening to revive Edgin’s dead wife, and stopping Forge’s advisor Sofina (Daisy Head) from taking over the Forgotten Realms.
Already, there’s a lot to cover!
One of my absolute favorite things about the movie was the acting. While I’m a big fan of the likes of Hugh Grant and Chris Pine (while I am a Star Trek: The Original Series girlie, the J.J. Abrams movie will always have my heart), Rodriguez, Page, Smith, and Lillis were absolutely phenomenal, and the character relationships felt genuine and not forced. As well as baby Kira! They might have had different techniques to get the baby’s attention, like looking at the floor when Edgin fell or having him and the baby exchange a look early on in the movie, but it was still very enjoyable to watch. Also, Daisy Head as the creepy, freaky Sofina was absolutely fantastic and there were parts I was genuinely freaked out.
It also felt like a typical Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Assembling the team, going across the Forgotten Realms to find these magic items (that may or may not work depending on if you use them properly), being captured and near death many times, and helpful NPCs to aid you on your journey and provide excellent commentary on your characters and what they should examine about themselves.
A few people asked me if someone would be able to enjoy this movie if they haven’t played Dungeons and Dragons or don’t know the game, and to them I say: yes. There is a lot of subtle humor and references that players might get, but for beginners or even those whose eyes glaze over when someone talks to them about dice rolls and initiative, it’s a wonderful fantasy movie.
For those interested, some of the humor/easter eggs in the movie (even some that don’t make it onto Buzzfeed lists) included the characters always trying to find a way to incorporate their backstories in nearly all dialogue, different moves (whether in fighting, trying to escape, trying to trick guards, or persuade members of authority) could be viewed with dice rolls (critical fails of critical successes), weapons upgrading on their own, even quick cuts as if the dungeon master is saying “Okay, you did another grave, what are your five questions,” or “you escape the prison and run across the icy terrain, you come across some horses, and you continue on.”
The thing that I wanted to have happen but didn’t was: no meta humor. One of the best things about DnD is the interactions during the actual roleplaying—the snarkiness between players about the best course of action, the exhausted dungeon master (or DM) who worked hard to prep an awesome evening of playing (and then those plans get obliterated when the druid casts a spell the DM forgot about, or when the bard rolls a natural 20 (aka a good roll) on their seduction roll). Not once did they cut away to a table of all the actors in different costumes, or even different people roleplaying at the actors, surrounded by chips, candy, sodas, and pizza.
And that’s fine! After reflecting on the movie and talking about it with a few of my DnD friends, it makes sense they didn’t do that, since it would have lowered the stakes immensely, and the audience then really wouldn’t care what happens to the characters, because it would all be seen as a game. Plus, it would have been rather distracting to jump back and forth between the real world and the fantasy world, and soon the conflicts wouldn’t be getting the magical items and saving the day, but working out the problems of the players (which would make an excellent TV, though…however that was already covered in the last episode of Freaks and Geeks, which starred Honor Among Thieves’s director and screenwriter, Joan Francis Daley! Bit of trivia for you!)
Because I had this mentality (and because from the very beginning I was hoping they’d go meta), I wasn’t really worried about the characters, because, in my mind, it was all a game. Granted, while watching it that mentality washed away and I was back to where I usually am when watching new movies—clutching my Junior Mints and muttering to the characters under my breath.
And, because I left myself down with this rather large and, looking back, unreasonable expectation, I didn’t quite like the movie. BUT that was because of my own expectations and my own experience playing the game. I encourage those interested in seeing the movie to still watch it and form their own opinions on it.
One plot point I did notice after reflection was the act of “fridging,” which is a trope used mainly in comic books, but can also be used in other types of media. It boils down to women or female characters being harmed or “depowered” in some way as a plot device to drive the man or male’s story forward. This is seen when Edgin loses his wife Zia (played by Georgia Landers), which sets him on a path to meet Holga, resort to thievery, get captured, etc. While this note of criticism is a bit different than “Oh man I wish they had gone meta,” I think it’s important to take note of plot devices that are a bit outdated, and work to provide new ways to give characters something to fight for.
My personal opinions aside, it was a fantastic fantasy movie, right down to the practical effects (which aren’t used as much in film nowadays thanks to CGI), character designs, humor, and rich settings of the film. And who knows! Maybe, after watching this movie, you’ll want to pick up a set of dice yourself (or two, or three, or four…).
E. A. Young Writes 