The New ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Movie Actually Rules
It’s hard to blame anyone who’s feeling a little skeptical toward Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves; the last time Hollywood tried to adapt the fantasy tabletop game into a film series, the results were almost supernaturally awful. Even so, anyone who loves D&D would do well to roll the dice again on this new adventure. Unlike its predecessor, this one’s a certified crowd-pleaser—even for those among us who’ve never glimpsed a character sheet.
Those who have played Dungeons & Dragons will find plenty of details to love in Honor Among Thieves (including an excellently deployed owlbear), but the film also avoids egregious pandering and excessively loud Easter eggs. In place of strained references, Dungeons & Dragons, which premiered Friday night at the 2023 SXSW Film Festival, rewards the game’s fans with a satisfying journey that emphasizes companionship, tenacity, and most importantly, playfulness above all else. In other words, the movie succeeds because it actually manages to capture what makes the game such fun to play.
A killer cast also never hurts. We open on two longtime partners in crime—the charismatic Edgin (Chris Pine), and his more taciturn partner Holga (Michelle Rodriguez)—as they plead their case for release from prison on charges of thievery and skullduggery. These two might’ve already gotten caught red-handed during one heist, but it doesn’t take long for them to embark on another once they’ve flown the coop. They’ve got good motivation: Edgin needs to find his daughter, Kira (Chloe Coleman), whom he hopes to find in the care of another member of his crew, Forge (Hugh Grant). Unfortunately for Edgin, his former colleague is living proof that there’s no honor among—well, you know.
It’s not just the star power that fuels Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, but also the care with which each character appears to have been cast. Pine, whose signature swagger as Captain Kirk vaulted him into the Hollywood Chris Big Leagues, is undeniable here—reliably game, earnest when needed, and charismatic beyond all reason. Rodriguez brings all her action chops to bear, but also considerable warmth—particularly toward Kira, for whom she’s been something of a surrogate mother.
We all know from Paddington 2 how good Hugh Grant can be at playing shifty villains, and Bridgerton alum Regé-Jean Page makes a side-splitting foil for Pine as the unfailingly valiant, irony-challenged warrior Xenk. Although the film largely steers clear of romance, there is some adorable flirtation between our resident druid, Doric (portrayed with gentle, amusing misanthropy by It stand-out Sophia Lillis) and Simon, a young sorcerer with confidence issues (Pokémon: Detective Pikachu star Justice Smith). Stick around long enough, and you’ll also see one of the funniest cameos of Bradley Cooper’s career.
Also helpful: The world these characters inhabit feels immersive and believable. Throughout the film, we see all manner of beings and creatures—psychedelic bugs, displacer beasts, and the like—and each new realm has its own distinct aesthetic. At times, some of these landscapes might feel a little familiar—Holga’s old home looks an awful lot like the Shire—but overall, our travels through this new world feel seamless.
Those who’ve developed an allergy to the compulsive quippiness that’s begun to grip Hollywood scripts in the past decade or so might, at times, feel their skin start to itch at certain points. That said: While the script does lean heavily on the party’s ongoing repartée, the humorous back-and-forth never comes at the expense of earnest emotion. Sure, a would-be zinger does fall flat here and there, and yes, there are a good number of “pause for reaction” moments as various characters mug for the camera, but in the end, both the jokes and the emotions land.
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Above all of that, however, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’ greatest achievement is its evident and abundant adoration for the game it’s captured. Rather than throw all manner of familiar creatures and items at the screen, directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daly (who also wrote the script alongside Michael Gilio) seem to have put careful thought into how each creature, every battle move, is deployed.
Each reveal feels carefully calibrated for maximum comedic impact. (Case in point: The first time we meet a halfling, it’s to establish a certain character’s kink for height differences—a joke that comes back later for a final, uproarious wink.) The film’s final battle feels like a love letter to D&D fans—which is to say, it’s an absolute mess in which every character throws pretty much everything they’ve got against their foe in a last-ditch effort to save the world with their friends or die trying. If that doesn’t make you want to pick up a d20 dice and start a campaign, it’s hard to imagine what would.
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