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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves follows the story of a world full of dragons, elves, dwarves, orcs, and other fantastic creatures. Edgin, played by Chris Pine, is a human who’s always risking his life between the most dangerous and mysterious places of this universe, always with the help of other adventurers such as Holga a brave and strong barbarian played by Michelle Rodriguez, Simon a wizard played by Justice Jesse Smith, Doric a tiefling druid played by Sophia Lillis, and finally Xenk a paladin played by the wonderful Regé-Jean Page, all these characters are willing to fight evil and defeat the most terrible creatures that come in their way. Based on the game Dungeons & Dragons, a RPG created in the 1970s.
First I would like to start talking about the D&D universe as a whole, if you are a fan of the game this is a delicious feast not only for the references but also for this gigantic world that is constant throughout the movie, but for people who doesn’t know anything about Dungeons & Dragons will also venture into this movie. Watching the movie really felt like it was a mixture of Guardians of the Galaxy along with Avengers but placing it in the medieval epoch, the humor of the film is simply sensational, done in exactly the right tone and not getting too exaggerated and silly, the film takes advantage of its great visuals all the time. For those who expect a worthy adaptation of the Rpg this here is more than special, the film embarks equally the Rpg game. The film is a lot about chemistry and conversation of the group, all about friendship and harmonization between them, each has the different kind of ability and that together they can pass certain challenges and dangers. It is literally the board game, only of course feeding off the transition to film, to make it easier to understand.
A family movie, not something dark or something gloomy, it’s something to have fun with your family on a late afternoon, and that’s what D&D really is. One of the highlights of the movie for me was for sure the CGI that I in particular couldn’t find a single flaw even with a smaller budget than certain companies that spend a huge amount of money on certain movies and even then you can see the green screens and the poorly finished CGI, but here in Dungeons & Dragons not only CGI that are impeccable, the practical effects shine in this movie too, certain creatures like dragons, and the druid herself are really hard things to do in practical effects but Dungeons & Dragons also has Ogres, Elves, and mostly half humanoid animals that are totally done in practical effects and this is fantastic, the giant scope of how the visuals of Dungeons & Dragons is done is beautiful, wonderful and stunning, two parts for me are highlight that would be the part that takes place inside a mountain that inside it has lava and a dragon a little overweight, all perfect in this sequence in my opinion.
Watching this movie you feel a little more adventurous and fun vibe, the directors of the film Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley have already worked on the script of Spider-Man Homecoming, so if you enjoy this feeling of the 2-3 phases of Marvel you will love this movie, and not only that, the direction of the directors are very well done probably the highest point of the film is this, the action, everything very well directed, and something that is easy to understand, without many cuts which makes the scene very good. The story of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is nothing complex, something easy to understand, has the first act half below the other two for reasons of implementing things for the adventure to move forward, so we will have the introduction of each character, the problem that in this case would be trying to rescue the daughter of Edgin (Chris Pine), and because of this the first act is more of putting certain justifications nothing interesting at certain points of the “campaign” of the film, but as soon as the first act ends and you begin to move more in the story, advance more in that adventure and connect more and more with the characters the movie gears up and does not stop improving every minute, so the movie puts you in this fantasy world along with the action and relationship between the main characters. As I said before the movie is hilarious and it gets even better throughout the movie, in the right tone with the right characters, Chris Pine is a sensational guy in humor, with a perfect comic tone, Michelle Rodriguez is also very well chosen being a barbarian all sisuda and tough who has great comedy scenes but mainly in action, the action scenes of Michelle Rodriguez’s character are very good, the wizard character (Simon) who is the character of Justice Jesse Smith is the ironic character that also provides several funny scenes, the character of Sophia Lillis the Druid provides my favorite scene of the whole movie, a sequence shot of about 5 minutes without any kind of cut, she transforms herself into several animals, this scene is amazing. I think where the movie really fails is in the drama, the drama of the movie is something without any emotion, while the movie gets the humor right, the direction right, the photography and cinematography right, the drama is very weak. For the final reception the film has a very positive balance, with an adventure very well done and as I said before something really worthy for the world of Dungeons & Dragons, because unlike the other curious adaptations that this franchise received this film has a lot of heart involved by the directors who are really fans of the franchise. I very much hope that Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves has a sequel, as we know we will have something about Dungeons & Dragons at Paramount+ but we still don’t know if it will be part of that same universe, as soon as the movie ended we were left with a taste of “I want more of that universe” I really want it to become a new franchise in theaters, I don’t expect it to be very beneficial when it comes to box office, because the film is not marketing itself so well and also the film will take a very heavy window for movies, but I do hope that it will pay off and soon we will have a sequel confirmed. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is the best movie of the year so far, a fun story with charismatic characters and an incredible use of practical effects. A movie made for new and old fans.
★★★★½
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves releases in theaters on March 31st
