Film Review: Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

by Julia DeKorte | 30 Jun 2023

Book Reviews

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, is a fantastical comedy starring Chris Pine (Edgin) and Michelle Rodriguez (Holga), who are on a mission to rescue Kira, Edgin’s 14-year-old daughter from Forge, a former friend of Edgin who has taken over Neverwinter. Edgin and Holga must drum up a team of magical friends who, when their strengths are put together, have a chance of beating Forge and Sofina, a Red Wizard who Forge allied with to gain more power and wealth, but has bigger, more dangerous motives.

 

The film starts with Edgin and Holga in prison, seeking to be pardoned, but having greater plans of escape. Once they break out of prison, they immediately go to Neverwinter, where Forge has become Lord and brainwashed Kira into thinking Edgin had left her for wealth, rather than the Tablet of Reawakening, which Edgin was attempting to steal when he got caught and sent to prison. The Tablet of Reawakening has the power to bring one person back from the dead, and Edgin wanted to bring back his wife, Kira’s mother, who was killed when Kira was young.

 

Forge reveals his true colors and has Edgin and Holga taken away to be executed. After a narrow escape, the two set out to build their team and rescue Kira and the Tablet of Reawakening. Xenk, Simon, and Doric are among the magical beings that join their team, and together the group attempts to locate the Helmet of Disjunction, which will allow them to break into the vault in Forge’s castle where the Tablet of Reawakening is protected. Through graveyards, forests, villages, and the underworld the group travels. What they don’t know is Sofina is up to a lot worse than they ever could’ve imagined, and their rescue mission is about to expand from one teenager to an entire population of people.

 

The film itself was thrilling to watch. Based off of the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, it has no relation to the previous film trilogy that was released in the early 2000s. The characters are what make the movie, with each of them undergoing some serious character development and learn more about themselves and their relationships with one another as their quest takes unexpected turn after turn. However, this action-quest film wasn’t all sappy – it was hilarious too. Edgin is a delightfully sarcastic character, and Holga, his counterpart, is badass and not to be messed with.

 

Fans of the original game report that the film “delightfully nails the fun of role-playing as fantasy characters with your friends,” and that it “does a great job of capturing the different tones players might experience in their own campaigns, from horror to campy fun, and from epic high fantasy to a thrilling heist.” Humorous, action-packed heist with a strong theme of friendship and growth, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is not a film to miss.

 

 

Dungeons and Dragons honor among thieves edgin holga doric kira simon forge neverwinter sofina red wizard harper chris pine

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