My, it does dragon
A tedious comedy-fantasy based on the role-play game.
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOUR AMONG THIEVES Directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein
The directing duo behind 2018’s criminally underrated and hugely entertaining
Game Night has rolled the dice on another board-gameinspired comedy. But their attempt to make another
Princess Bride from fantasy role-playing perennial
Dungeons & Dragons is disappointingly dull.
Whereas Game Night sent up its middle-aged, suburban board gamers by forcing them to use their gaming nous to solve a real kidnapping, Honour Among Thieves merely uses a world in which magic spells, druids and dragons are everyday things as the backdrop for an unimaginative adventure.
Chris Pine ( Star Trek) and Michelle Rodriguez ( Fast & Furious) are Edgin and Holga, thieves leading a band of merry misfits on a quest to find a stolen relic, recover a daughter, and kill a baddy. Pine shows some lightheartedness as he attempts jokes and strums a lute, but career action woman Rodriguez isn’t a natural comic. Luckily, they’re up against a scenerychewing Hugh Grant as the Lord of Neverwinter, who can at least be relied upon to perform with gusto, no matter how silly the part.
The best moments involve talking corpses and an ingenious “hither-thither” teleportation staff but neither the writing nor direction shows much originality and it ends up somewhere between Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves without strong characters and the Hobbit movies minus the thrills.
Perhaps aficionados of the massively popular tabletop role-playing game – which turns 50 next year – will pick up enough in-jokes and metacommentary to be amused. But they’ve been burnt before with a terrible 2000 movie among other ropey screen versions. As a fun comedy fantasy, D&D:HAT just feels like a loser.
IN CINEMAS NOW