Susan Granger’s review of “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” (Paramount Pictures)
Confession: I’ve never played “Dungeons & Dragons,” so I had to learn a bit about the classic fantasy role-playing game before watching the movie. If you’re also a newbie, I’d advise you do the same.
Set on the Sword Coast of the Forgotten Realms, the comedic action/adventure revolves around a silver-tongued bard/rogue/thief, Edgin Davis (Chris Pine), whose wife was killed, leaving him to raise their young daughter, Kira (Chloe Coleman), with the help of his BFF Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez), a gruff, tattooed barbarian.
But when he and Holga are arrested and thrown in the cliff-side, ice prison of Revel’s End for a couple of years, Kira’s care fell to con-man Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant), who rules over a walled city and is under the spell of the evil Red Wizard Sofina (Daisy Head).
In the interim, Forge has persuaded Kira that her father abandoned her. Desperate to reunite his family, Edgin is convinced that if he can acquire the Tablet of Reawakening, he’ll be able to revive his wife and restore all that was lost.
Problem is: the Tablet is locked in a tall stone catacomb, so Edgin must find the Helmet of Disjunction, which can stop time, in order to accomplish this daring feat.
So he joins up with a righteous-albeit-humorless warrior, the debonair paladin Xenk Yemdar (Rege-Jean Page), along with second-tier sorcerer Simon (Justice Smith,) and the shape-shifting Tiefling Druid, Doric (Sophia Lillis). It’s a lot more complicated than that but I’m striving for simplicity here.
Scripted by co-directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, along with Michael Gilio, it’s based on the complex, immersive game created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in 1974, popularly known as D&D which – in turn – has influenced subsequent game systems involving ‘let’s pretend’ and improvisation.
Bradley Cooper does a cameo as Marlamin and regular players will ‘get’ the ‘insider’ references and jokes that I missed during the 2 hours 14 minutes..
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” is a silly, swaggering, swashbuckling 7, playing in theaters.
