This review may contain spoilers!
Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves follows a group of adventurers who venture on a series of quests to overthrow a duplicitous rogue and defeat the Red Wizard, Sofina. I love that this film really gets to the heart of the game it is based off: it manages to be fun, humourous and the party solves everything with a wild and chaotic energy. This film makes fantasy a delight to watch and participate in, which is something the past fifty overly serious King Arthur type films haven't managed to draw an audience for. This film manages to really define the different character archetypes in D&D, flesh them out into characters who have oodles of chemistry with one another and then have the good grace to invite the audience on one hell of an adventure. The experience of seeing this story come up with really entertaining and creative scenarios that showcase just how rich the world of Dungeons & Dragons can be is great. I especially loved the journey our main protagonist, Edgin, goes on to lead his team and reunite with his daughter. This film does what any good D&D campaign does, it starts off with a band of reckless hooligans and it turns them into genuine heroes by the end of the feature. I loved this wonderful charming ride, I never wanted to get off.
The cinematography in this feature really complements the rollicking adventure-style it goes for, while also managing some mammoth engaging wides that make the special effects scenes fun to watch. The special effects themselves look really good, there's a great focus here on bringing some classic creatures and spells to life in a very beautiful way. Lorne Balfe makes scores that just rarely miss and here he captures the joy and thrill of a D&D adventure, the light tone is managed throughout while also keeping the darker or more serious scenes properly scored.
Chris Pine, who played Edgin, is a brilliant protagonist for this film and has charisma to spare; I enjoyed him as a scoundrel of sorts with a heart of gold. Michelle Rodriguez, who played Holga, pairs so nicely with Pine and has found a career defining role that is so much better than her time with Fast And Furious; Rodriguez manages someone who is stoic and gruff but who also manages to wear their heart quite openly on their sleeve around those she loves. Justice Smith, who played Simon, works well as the meek and cowardly sorcerer; I often found that a lot of the very best gags came from Smith and his delivery. Sophia Lillis, who played Doric, is one of the tougher roles in the film; Lillis plays a character who is inherently good but wields a lot of rage at the unjust world around her. Hugh Grant, who played Forge, is about as perfect a casting choice for a rogue as we could have gotten; watching Grant's selfish role lie and manipulate his way through the entire feature will make you love to hate him. Ian Hanmore, who played Szass Tam, isn't in the film much but feels like a horror figure; Hanmore builds a real sense of dread that sets him up nicely as a greater looming antagonist. Bradley Cooper, who played Mariamin, is one of the best cameos I've seen in a film this year; Cooper playing this gentle ex-aprtner against Rodriguez is masterfully performed by one of the best in the business.
However, the best performance came from Regé-Jean Page, who played Xenk. I thought the stoic, comely paladin would be the more neutral aspect of the feature, love being proven wrong. Page has a gentle grace and knows how to layer on the charm to present a character who just seems inherently noble. Watching him passionately talk about honour and duty makes him a nice straight-edged contrast to the rest of the cast which is refreshing at times. I liked how this character had a very strict sense of goodness that sharply contrasted the main roles, it especially meant his relationship with Pine's character was really great to watch. Page also dominates action scenes, having one of the coolest and most memorable fight sequences in the film.
Where Honour Among Thieves stumbles is how it presents backstories and information, often delivering this sort of material in long rambling bouts of exposition. These are curtailed slightly with supremely funny comedic wit but ultimately these points of narration are quite bloated and can drag the pacing down. The film also describes itself as having a ticking clock a few times, but the quest itself doesn't feel urgent. We know the bad guys have a plan and there's a date things are going to go down but the quest isn't treated as a big frantic adventure; rather we get lots of cool snapshots of the adventure and it's not till the final act things really get frantic.
While I liked the cinematography for the most part there were a couple of more experimental shots that just did not work and really should have been edited out in post-production.
Chloe Coleman, who played Kira, gives a pretty generic performance as the estranged daughter character of the film; I go back and forth on Coleman as an upcoming actress and this feature didn't do anything to help her leave her mark. Daisy Head, who played Sofina, is our main antagonist of the film which is more than a little underwhelming; Head's role of Sofina is quite emotionless and feels more like an underling figure even in her big final fight of the film.
A film that gets to the heart of the game and has really rekindled my love for fantasy films. I would give Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves an 8.5/10.
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