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swords. Sorcery. Multi-sided dice. The dubious title “Dungeon Master”. Tiny pewter miniatures of warriors, wizards and various mythical creatures. recreation rooms in the basement. Groups of teenagers—not all dudes, but almost always dudes—huddled around battle cards and grid-paper books. These are the things that most people immediately think of when they hear the name Dungeons & Dragons, the role-playing game that turned generations into die-hard fantasy fanatics in its early years. It’s also gotten a bad rap for having become an acronym for a certain type of outdated caricature of mouth-breathing dweebdom. No matter how many celebrities publicly get poetic about their D&D campaigns with famous friends, many still associate it with freaks, geeks, and the cast of Stranger Things. To paraphrase one of the great intellectuals of the 21st century, you’re not hardcore unless you annoy hardcore.
“We made this film for everyone,” Jonathan Goldstein, one half of the duo behind Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, told the crowd at the film’s premiere on the opening night of this year’s SXSW Film and TV Festival. His co-director, John Francis Daley – no stranger to D&D – also repeated the opinion several times. It came out as a plea: Folks, we know you think these will be nothing but inside jokes and deep cuts aimed at those who understand the difference between a Beholder and a Basilisk. Seriously, you can walk in without knowing any of this. I mean sure there will be easter eggs. Fan service is a must. But just think of it as your average mix of Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, some MCU flotsam and Jetsam and all those ’80s action comedies that we all watch over and over on DVD have . We all love that stuff, right?
Well, we do (some of those elements more than others), and you can bet the SXSW audiences who crammed into the Paramount Theater certainly did. Big-name studio comedies, horror films and genre-friendly blockbusters always play like pop concerts at this Austin festival, even if they don’t open the first part of the film/music/multimedia event. Honor Among Thieves happens to fall into all three of those categories, making it an ideal premiere pick — although that’s the only time “ideal” can really be applied to this admittedly better-than-should-be, fantasy leftover casserole.
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So there are these two thieves named Edgin (Chris Pine) and Holga (Michelle Rodriguez). They were imprisoned along with their wizard buddy Simon (Justice Smith) and an imposter named Forge (Hugh Grant) for trying to steal this totem known as the Tablet of Reawakening. It was all staged, you see, and plays into this whole plan of revenge involving Edgin, his estranged daughter, a dead woman, a guild of spies known as “Harpers,” and some evil wielders of dark magic known as Reds magicians, are involved.
[These Red Wizards, for the record, come from the country of Thay and can cast third-level arcane spells. Pretty dope necromancers, to say the least. They are ruled by the Council of Zulkirs and count the dreaded Szass Tam, a much-feared “lich,” among their ranks. Again, you don’t need to know this. The movie is for everybody, guys. We now return you to this review, already in progress.]
When these two heroic cellmates stage a prison break, they discover that “Uncle” Forge has tricked Edgin’s child, Kira (Chloe Coleman), into believing she has been betrayed and abandoned. Worse, a supernatural lunatic named Sofina (Daisy Head) who was hanging around before they were caught has her own plans for the tablet, and – spoilers – those plans do not bode remotely well. Once reunited with Simon, the trio embark on a quest for artifacts that will help defeat the Sofina/Forge alliance and save Kira. Joining them in their quest are Doric (It’s Sofia Lillis), a shapeshifter, and the powerful paladin Xenk Yendar (Regé-Jean Page). There are also overweight dragons and talking corpses and flaming scepters and gelatinous dice that, to be fair, will help you outrun a panther with killer tendrils if you get stuck in a maze.
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Does that sound like a lot? It is, and it isn’t – Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is, at its core, a standard hero’s journey straight out of Joseph Campbell, just one that happens to twist a lot of specific lore onto a typical sword & wizard narrative. It’s also very geared to be the start of a new franchise based on a recognizable, albeit narrow, intellectual property. This isn’t the first time someone has used the D&D handle in the name of big entertainment: there was a Saturday morning animated series in the early 1980s and a fluffy attempt at a Dungeons & Dragons movie in 2000 that had the misfortune Coming out a year before the Lord of the Rings trilogy changed the game. (The only legacy is the answer to the trivia question: What movies do Thora Birch, Jeremy Irons, and Marlon Wayans star in?) The brand has a manual’s worth of character types and monsters without having a literary or comic book or movie canon of the storytelling. It’s ripe for IP picking.
The Directors and Cast of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves at SXSW. Getty Images for Paramount Pictures
However, the only thing it has in its favor oddly has nothing to do with the property itself. It’s the old fashioned movie star factor. Now let’s praise famous men, or rather the best of the currently famous Hollywood Chris: Chris Pine. The gentleman has played do-gooders and villains, done the comic book movie thing (as a love interest), stepped into some famous Starfleet Commander shoes, and proved he’s the kind of actor who can help out something like Hell or High to turn water into an instant classic. But here Pine is called upon to be both a square-jawed traditional hero ready to save the world and the clever comic relief looking out for No. 1. In other words, he must be both Harrison Ford and Bill Murray.
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And damn if Pine can’t make it. D&D is a reminder that he can be a quick-witted matinee idol, someone who knows how to outplay his fellow actors and fills the screen with his presence and charm – call it “Chris-risma” – whenever he has to. The cast know what they’re doing: Grant is clearly enjoying using his post-Paddington 2 sleazeball act, Rodriguez does her sinister, tough exterior/sticky centerpiece, and judging by the way Page plays his straight-laced heartthrob ( he doesn’t understand sarcasm or slang), he hopes to book dozens of lead roles. But pine is the secret sauce that keeps this thing lively and light-footed even when the plot starts to pile up. He’s the guy at the center of this ensemble who shines but doesn’t overshadow everyone. More than the VFX and spectacle with the grand gestures, he’s the one who makes this movie fun. Like a classic summer blockbuster that’s fun.
The SXSW crowd ate it up, and when Pine emerged in what appeared to be a green suede leisure suit, everyone gave him the admiration he deserved. The talent spent the Q&A portion answering questions from the audience and nodding, while scores of people kept gushed, “I don’t know anything about Dungeons & Dragons, but this is just awesome.” The more she did though said the full name of the film, the more one thought about the tug-of-war that was taking place within the thing itself. If this were simply a fantasy called Honor Among Thieves, a title that encapsulates its blend of immersive adventure and multiplexed fun well, it probably never would have been made. The fact that Dungeons & Dragons is attached to the front half underwrote what’s on screen. Yet no matter how much the creators profess their love for the game, all of these calls for creatures, character types, campaign details, and so on feel like annoying distractions. The IP is both an enabler and an albatross around the film’s neck. They wish they had just rolled the 21-sided die to make a Chris Pine film instead of relying on a name that doesn’t quite have the level of spiritual power they might think.