Synopsis
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.
Pound for pound, I don’t think you could find me a brand that has had a bigger turnabout face than Dungeons & Dragons.
Gone are the days of D&D being a proud yet private passion for eccentrics and the socially outcast, and gone even longer are the days when a simple roleplaying game was getting blamed for a generation of alleged devil-worshippers. No, today D&D is firmly in the world of modern fandom and is about as approachable and clean as Mario and Barbie, who also have movies out at the moment, oddly enough. D&D has fully graduated in the public eye, a fact that can be seen in its name being clapped on to now a major motion picture, and not a God-awful one this time. Though I wouldn’t call this excellent either, not by a long shot. My experience with this film has confirmed to me that D&D is right up there with the big boys now, pop-culturally speaking anyway, in that it has (Like Marvel and DC) given to us a great big slice of, okay. It’s fine. Just fine. So, let’s talk about it.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves tells the story of a band of hard-done losers of various fantasy races all coming together to exact retribution on a bad dude who really has it coming, learning along the way that, though apart they are useless, together, they can kick some serious ass. If you’ve seen Guardians of the Galaxy, you know what the score is here. Throw in some surprisingly well-done action and a plot that refreshingly seems to give a crap about its principal characters, and you got yourself a movie. It ends up not being a memorable one in my opinion, though a movie it definitely is. I don’t mean that cynically; this is a very movie-feeling-movie. Special note should be given to Chris Pine also, whose charisma in this part gives his character a lot more depth than he otherwise would have had. While the rest of the cast does very well, I don’t feel any other one reaches the high points of Pine.
For something to look at, this one can be a bit lacking at times. There’s some very good use of Ireland’s natural beauty in most of the vistas, and some fun if janky creature costumes going on, but those get let down by some less than stellar CG that only really works in the darker parts of the film. Colours are mostly dull or muted in the day and nothing really popped for me in ways that other movies of this style have (See Guardians again).
This movie suffers from the unfortunate fact that it is not all that interesting to talk about on its own. Its identity, and how it decides to play its hand, are the most interesting things about it to me, and the way that hand is played is ultimately safe. We are in a brief moment where movie makers have been given these brand names and the only real footing these films can stand on is to just kind of make what was successful before, but again. It feels like the money involved is just too much to ever allow something a bit more daring. Though I hope I am wrong on this. Right now, however, I am just left with the impression that I saw a thing, I knew what that thing was, that it was now in a movie, and I walked away feeling more or less untouched by what said movie had given me. Though not in a sad way, just in an unfulfilling sort of way. Though maybe that is just me.
Verdict
If you want a familiar adventure in the trappings of your favourite roleplaying game, I’d say you find one of those D20 shaped popcorn tubs everyone keeps posting about, then fill that bitch up with sweet and salty and just go to town on it. Alternatively, you can go see this movie. All in all, you get what you paid for.
Note: I miss the days when licensed films were almost guaranteed to be trash. Ripping into something is far less daunting than writing about your ambivalence over something. I hold out hope for the Mario movie.
Written by Conor Reid | BanterFlix Contributor