Dungeons and Dragons - Honor Among Thieves (hereafter referred to as Thieves), is the latest blockbuster movie to grace the theaters, and recently dethroned John Wick as the box office leader. The movie provides pretty standard fantasy fair, heavy with tropes and fan service. That doesn’t make it a bad movie, but it’s also not an astonishingly new or creative film.
Edgin (Chris Pine) and Holga are thieves, imprisoned for 2 years after a botched robbery during which Edgin hoped to find a magical token capable of resurrecting his deceased wife. After escaping from prison, the two aim to return to their homeland and reunite with the daughter Edgin left behind, but they soon find that treachery is afoot. One of their past companions (Hugh Grant) has taken Edgin’s daughter, amassed a fortune from the ill-gotten gains of the botched robbery, and is working in the service of a potentially very dangerous sorcerer. Naturally, Edgin and Holga must gather a party of heroes, set off on a series of quests, and eventually rescue the daughter, take revenge on their traitorous former friend, and stop the foul pans of the dark sorcerer. Along the way, they battle all manner of beast and monster, recover magical relics, and discover their own true motivations and purpose.
Thieves is a decent fantasy movie with good effects, well-designed action sequences, a likable cast, and some funny moments. There’s nothing new or particularly fantastic that stands out, which is pretty much to be expected in a movie that aims to directly draw influence from the vast trove of D&D lore. There’s plenty of fan service here, from location names, spells and relics, mazes and secret chests, character types, and magical beasts. If you’re a D&D player, no doubt you’ll recognize a lot. I’m not, so some of the references were probably less impactful for me. The plot moves reasonably well, and doesn’t get bogged down as the heroes move from objective to objective, although it relies on the premise that the heroes make their plan up as they go, so sometimes it feels a little bit unstructured. It suffers a bit from some lengthy first act expository flashback sequences, and could have better stakes and a more developed big bad villain. That said, the movie is pretty successful overall. The acting is fine, but nothing special, and the characters (and really the entire world of the film) are only really developed at a surface level. But that’s fine if all you’re looking for is some popcorn family fun.
Thieves is rated PG-13. I’d liken it to Pirates of the Caribbean in terms of language, violence, etc. Should probably be fine for most families and kids. If you don’t want the gritty violence of John Wick, but don’t want to drop all the way down to the cartoony Super Mario Bros., then this might be the movie for you this weekend.