Damon Smith reviews the latest new releases DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOUR AMONG THIEVES (12A)

PREVIOUS attempts to translate the monsterslaying and spell-casting of Dungeons & Dragons to the big screen, including a 2000 fantasy adventure starring Jeremy Irons and Marlon Wayans, failed to replicate the unabashed fun or thrill of the roleplaying game.

John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein’s boisterous romp is a confident step in the right direction, combining special effects-laden action and tongue-in-cheek humour under the aegis of two dungeon masters, who struck a similarly irreverent tone with their previous film, Game Night.

The duo’s breezy script, co-written by Michael Gilio, acknowledges the game’s legacy with a cheeky homage to the 1980s animated TV series and fleeting appearances by creatures from D&D lore including a Mimic, Displacer Beast and Gelatinous Cube, which absorbs and digests organic matter including unfortunate adventurers.

A reliance on practical visual effects, including animatronics, puppeteering and make-up, imbues the film with nostalgic, old-fashioned charm in keeping with the gaming origins although a mind-bending sequence with a portal inside a moving stagecoach necessitates some nifty digital trickery.

Characters such as barbarians, bards, paladins, sorcerers and wizards and the principal setting of the Forgotten Realms on the continent of Faerun are immediately recognisable but for all the reverence and revelry, Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves feels like it’s always one roll of a polyhedral die shy of glory. Expertly choreographed fight sequences land glancing blows but never a sucker punch, jokes elicit warm smiles but rarely a fullblooded chortle and a big emotional pay-off is telegraphed far in advance.

Following the death of his wife Zia (Georgia Landers), lute-playing bard Edgin (Chris Pine) turns to petty thievery with his surrogate sister, exiled barbarian Holga (Michelle Rodriguez). The duo recruit selfdoubting sorcerer Simon (Justice Smith) and incorrigible rogue Forge (Hugh Grant) to their merry gang.

A plan to steal the fabled Scroll of Reawakening backfires and