DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS: HONOUR AMONG THIEVES [2023]

Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves (2023)
Directed by: John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein
Written by: John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein
Starring: Chris Pine, Hugh Grant, Justice Smith, Michael Gilio, Michell Rodriguez

 USA

IN CINEMAS NOW

RUNNING TIME: 134 mins

REVIEWED Dr Lenera

In the realm of Neverwinter, Bard Edgin Darvis is a member of the Harpers, an order of peacekeepers, until a Red Wizard kills his wife. He raises his daughter Kira with exiled barbarian Holga, making ends meet by stealing, along with amateur sorcerer Simon Aumar, rogue Forge Fitzwilliam, and Forge’s mysterious friend Sofina. But a mission to find The Tablet Of Awakening, with which Edgin intends to resurrect his wife, results in Forge and Sofina, who’s really a Red Wizard, betraying them. Edgin and Holga are imprisoned and Kira ends up in the care of Forge, who two years later is Lord of Neverwinter. Edgin and Holga escape and decide to rob Forges vault and bring Kira home with them during the upcoming High Sun Games, needing the tablet to prove their innocence. They track down Simon to help and also recruit his ex, tiefling druid Doric, plus paladin Xenk Yendar….

In my early teens, for about two years, I was indeed one of those people who, along with a few other like-minded individuals, all pretending to be characters exploring a fantasy world, solving dilemmas, engaging in battles, gathering treasure and knowledge and becoming increasingly powerful while a Dungeonmaster served as referee and storyteller. Of course such role playing is still quite popular even it’s now been usurped by the digital equivalent, but in the early ’80s it was a pretty big thing. 1983 saw the first series of a cartoon series which was surprisingly good despite seeming like it was aimed principally at people even younger than us, but, despite every now and again a film coming along which clearly had a D & D influence, there wasn’t an official Hollywood offering until 2000 where – well, it was a reasonable fantasy adventure along very familiar lines, but it wasn’t D & D, and I never even bothered with the DTV sequels. This new version has been in the planning since 2013, and that didn’t bode well; while there are of course exceptions, films that take a very long time to get off the ground don’t generally tend to end up that good. However, this one has really turned out rather well. It manages the difficult task of appealing to fans of the game who will pick up on every reference and hint [a hell of a lot  of which I probably failed to notice because it’s been nearly 40 years since I last rolled the twenty-sided dice] and love the “find this, to do that,then do that, to find this” plotting, yet what I could almost call The Lord Of The Rings meets Guardians Of The Galaxy will also thoroughly entertain those who’ve never pretended to be an elf or a dwarf, with an overall story line that’s easy to follow and which even has an emotional centre. However, the almost constant attempts at humour do become rather wearing, diminishing the sense of danger and not working almost as often as when they do work, but a very well chosen cast indeed keeps things fresh and lively and shares an amazing amount of chemistry.

The main part of the plot admittedly takes a while to set up, and you don’t get much in the way of adventuring and fights with strange creatures for some time, but then a considerable attempt has been made for this film to work first and foremost as a story, rather than a series of set pieces. We first meet Edgin and Holga in prison, where a fresh arrival in their cell gets all smutty with Holda and receives the expected response from her. The two are then hauled up before a court to see if they can be set free, and Edgin tells off the events that led to him being there. The device of a flashback often seems clumsy, but at least it means that the film can race through all these background events, especially when there’s a narrator to help out. We feel Edgin’s pain when his wife is slain but know when he sets out to obtain this stone that can revive the dead it’s not going to lead to a good result, we remember how ancient Egyptians usually named Imhotep or Kharis got into terrible trouble trying to revive their dead loves, though Edgin doesn’t even get to attempt a resurrection before he’s captured and hauled into prison along with Holga. An escape now takes place, though as they flee they hear the news that they didn’t actually need to pull off such a daring feat, because the decision had been made to pardon them anyway. Back in Neverwinter, they don’t just learn that Forge has become Lord there, assisted by Red Wizard Sofina, after its prior lord became mysteriously incapacitated. but that he’s s convinced Kira that her father’s greed and selfishness led to his arrest and Forge is a much better person to look after there. It’s a simple, easy but effective device for Edgin’s questing to have some urgency and for us to be totally behind him.

The planned heisting of both Forge’s vault and Kira is going to take place while the High Sun Games are taking place at the stadium. The gladiatorial contests had previously been banned, but Forge has reinstated them, promising that the games would bring in tourists and money. Edgin and Holga track down their old partner Simon to help,  then Doric, a teifling [quote “a race whose human ancestors made a bargain with devils to increase their power”]  whose forest community is fighting the forced logging ordered by Forge. She and Simon almost had a relationship but she broke it off. Doric infiltrates Forge’s castle by animal shapeshifting and finds the vault has magical defenses from Mordenkainen [quote, “the leader of the Circle Of Eight, a cabal of eight powerful wizards”], which Simon declares he lacks power to disable. Her escape leads to the first major action sequence and, even though it’s easy to become unimpressed by what the computer magicians can conjure up for our entertainment, it’s quite an exciting,show-offy sequence, which the camera indulging in long takes and rarely cutting as it pursues Doric all over the place while she transforms into several different animals. Simon proposes that a magic relic, “The Helm of Disjunction,” could disable these magical defenses, so they travel to an old graveyard to ask Holga’s ancestors where to find it. This is the comedic highlight of the whole film, as Simon has to resurrect corpses with a talisman long enough for them to answer five questions; first of all he asks too many questions by mistake, then gets so good he struggles to find things to ask them so that they can go back to their dead and peaceful state. The sequence is well sustained and genuinely funny. The corpses reveal they gave the Helm to Xenk Yandar, paladin [quote, “a holy knight, crusading in the name of good and order, and  a divine spellcaster“] who fled his country. And so the quest carries on, but what is it that both Forge and Sofina, who might have different agendas, seem up to?

The encounters with fantastic beasts increase, as does the battling, but there’s more emphasis on wizardry, probably because it can result in more comedy when things don’t work as well as was expected or go wrong, and nobody suddenly or conveniently turns into an extraordinary warrior just because the plot or a scene requires it; those who aren’t fighters, which include our primary hero, remain that way. The five main characters all have certain issues – for example Simon has very low self esteem and always thinks negatively – which you just know are going to get resolved, at least to a certain extent, but because the overall tone is light, such moments don’t feel cheesy or embarrassing. On the other hand the potentially thrilling nature of some bits is undercut too much by the goofy tone, even if the would-be chuckles never become as intrusive as the Marvel films when they’re at their worst, and, despite a lot of generic trappings [which is probably how it should be anyway] there’s occasional real invention on display, such as an obese but still deadly dragon. However, the climactic set pieces, even though they’re taken more seriously, don’t quite possess enough wow factor, with a battle between a dragon and an owl-bear [probably self-explanatory that one], which brings back memories of Ray Harryhausen and the voyages of Sinbad, almost thrown away. Still, directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley keep the action coherent, not resorting to frantic cutting and even pulling off a few moments of’ ‘shakycam’ because they’re employed sparsely and appropriately. The CGI is a mixed bag, with the early introduction to the just-mentioned owl-bear looking like a scene which was unfinished because the creature is slightly blurry and doesn’t look like it’s a part of its surroundings, a shame because it’s the first fantastic animal that we see. There’s some good work elsewhere though, including what looks a slightly greater use of practical effects than is the norm for effects-filled motion pictures these days.

The varied locations are sweepingly photographed by Barry Peterson though there’s a slightly gritty look to a lot of the settings which slightly jars with the comedic approach and which occasionally hampers the sense that we’re in a world where anything can happen, even though such a world is exactly where we are. It’s possible to lose track of all the names of things and people, and a few of these seem to be present more because they can feature more prominently in a sequel more than anything else, even though apparently this film wasn’t made with the intention of creating a series [so we’ve been told]. The cast all appear to be having huge fun, and here we really do have a film where that seems to show in the finished product. I blow hot and cold on Chris Pine, but here he has a role which plays to his strengths, and he pulls it off perfectly. Being that he’s constantly required to crack silly lines, he could have come off as smarmy and annoying, but instead he’s a delight to be with and we never forget the pain that his character feels. Opposite him is Hugh Grant, who appears to be on some sort of career renaissance, using that charm that initially made him a star [though which I have to say I never felt] to add an interesting dimension to an increasing gallery of bad guys. Here, his line delivery and even his body language is often very funny even when his lines aren’t that great, which is something that can be said for most of the cast. We’re used to Michelle Rodriguez playing tough women, and her presence does bring in certain other elements in the film which unpleasantly recall a certain [unfortunately] hugely popular franchise in which she features. Yet she’s terrific here, and we love her character’s relationship with Pine’s which is definitely love but not love of the romantic or sexual kind, even though we’re dying for them to properly get together. Maybe they’ll do that in the next one, if it happens. Boy do these two performers have chemistry, especially when they sing a drinking song together. We want to see more of Rege-Jean Page’s Xenk; his total seriousness could surely have used more mileage, especially what with Edgin’s responses to him.

I growned when the name of Lorne Balfe, one of Hans Zimmer’s many acolytes, came up in the opening credits, but his musical score is quite varied and more melodic than usual even if it lacks the sweep and inventiveness that the film really requires. Despite its lacking of the magical atmosphere of the genuinely great fantasy movies, and its trying too hard to be funny [though I will say that a lot of bits had people laughing in the auditorium that I was in, so maybe old Doc was just in too serious a mood], it’s still surprising how good this Dungeons And Dragons is. Movies based on games don’t often come off well, either being too much like games or not resembling the source material much at all. It’s quite a hard thing to pull of, so Goldstein and Daley who also scripted with the aid of Michael Gilio, deserve a lot of credit here. The final decision by a main character has a genuinely emotional effect even though we know that this is probably what he’d going to do only a few seconds before he actually does it – which proves that the film has been working. Sequels are more than welcome. However, what about a film of that cartoon series? Actually no, maybe not, it could go horribly wrong, but then again – nah! Let’s not tarnish its reputation as still being the best version of Dungeons And Dragons.

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