Hey, at least this Dungeons & Dragons is better than the previous three film adaptations, but it’s as dull and uninteresting as they were. The past three Dungeons & Dragons films didn’t work for various reasons. Courtney Solomon’s 2001 original was an unfunny comedy with some of the worst visual effects ever crafted. Gerry Lively’s sequels were languishingly paced and lifelessly directed, with stilted performances from every actor who starred in them. The bar was extremely low for its reboot, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Its visual effects are impressive, and the star power is enticing. However, the film is a boring, unfunny, and unremarkable medieval adventure that may have been serviceable had the film been released before Creed III, John Wick: Chapter 4, and Bholaa.
There’s no memorable action sequence in Honor Among Thieves, save for a semi-fun tracking shot involving Doric (Sophia Lillis) transforming herself into multiple animals while trying to escape the clutches of Sofina (Daisy Head). But it’s not as visually inventive and kinetic as the “Dragon Breath” scene in John Wick: Chapter 4, which positioned a practical camera inside a practical set and saw Keanu Reeves blow people up with a modified gun. In the D&D tracking shot, the camerawork feels artificial, and while always impressive, it doesn’t feel as authentic and visually eye-grabbing as in John Wick. It would’ve been a mild enjoyment if the film had been released before that one. Still, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves represents many [bad] recurring motifs that have plagued several Hollywood blockbusters.
The first is a plot audiences have seen before done in the most uninspired way possible. After serving a long prison sentence, thieves Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine) and Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez) return to their old friend, Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant), who, you guessed it, is a con artist who is looking to kill the two thieves for full custody of Edgin’s daughter, Kira (Chloe Coleman). After narrowly escaping death, Edgin and Holga assemble a team comprised of wizard Simon Aumar (Justice Smith), paladin Xenk Yendar (Regé Jean-Page), and tiefling Doric to take down Forge and defeat Sofina (under the control of Szass Tam), who plans on performing a ritual to turn attendees of a festival occurring once a year in the town of Neverwinter.
There are virtually no surprises in Honor Among Thieves: the obvious bad guy is an obvious bad guy who will find a way to double-cross the thieves. The team is a bumbling group of people who have collectively failed at life but will succeed when the climax causes them to stop doubting themselves as the world’s fate is at stake. The main villain controls a MacGuffin and speaks gibberish to conjure up a spell that will turn everyone into lifeless creatures, as lifeless as the action scenes are. Of course, there will be significant setups to sequels and television series because modern-day Hollywood focuses on content, not art.
There isn’t a single action scene in Honor Among Thieves that doesn’t feel AI-generated. The cinematography is lifeless, and the visual effects are as drab as they look. The characters know how to run (Chris Pine has the best style), but none of the fight scenes are well-choreographed. The core fight scene between Xenk and Dralas (Jason Wong) is haphazardly shot and edited. There’s no sense of geography within the action; it all feels artificial. Even the climax, which has flourishes of exciting moments here and there, doesn’t feel fresh. Audiences have seen it all before done in better movies. There are some decently choreographed one-on-one fights, but they severely lack a sense of scale and scope.
The same can be said for the humor, which is, at times, grossly unfunny, and, most of the time, terribly boring. It feels perfunctory and childish, though there are instances where genuine laughs are brought. However, these moments are sparse and not the norm of what directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley establish. Instead, the characters are walking and talking jokes. The filmmakers are desperate to want to make a Marvel movie, medieval-style, instead of delivering a moving adventure that reinvents its approach to medieval action and draws interesting characters in the process.
Frankly, there are no interesting characters in this film. Regé-Jean Page is the best part of Honor Among Thieves, but he’s barely in it to make an impression that he almost doesn’t count. Instead, audiences are stuck with characters who spew clichés and badly-written jokes. The film has no original moments, even if it tries hard to impress. Pine and Rodriguez look especially bored. At least Hugh Grant seems to enjoy himself by playing a character he seems to have already some ease with since he played a similar character in Paddington 2. But none of the other actors have a sense of chemistry when they’re together. They’re all extremely flat, looking away at the screen in anticipation of the paycheck they’re going to receive.
As far as Dungeons & Dragons adaptations go, it’s definitely the best of the bunch. But the bar was set so low that Honor Among Thieves still ends up being a mostly unremarkable and unfunny affair. It’s too clichéd for its own good, the action sequences aren’t that impressive, and the characters will wear the audience members’ patience thin through their poorly-written jokes. And with a villain so disposable, it’ll be relatively easy to forget that the film ever existed, and it’s better to relegate the entire movie to a dungeon, where it belongs.
Film: Rating: 
Director: Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley
Stars: Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé Jean-Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, Chloe Coleman, Daisy Head, and Hugh Grant.
Runtime: 134 minutes
Country: USA/Canada
