Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Movie Review

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)

Rent Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley and Michael Gilio (screenplay by), Chris McKay & Michael Gilio (story by)
Directed by: John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein
Starring: Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, Hugh Grant
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer

Plot
A charming thief and a band of unlikely adventurers embark on an epic quest to retrieve a lost relic, but things go dangerously awry when they run afoul of the wrong people.

Verdict
This feels like the current blockbuster blueprint with an ensemble cast and a big adventure showcasing plenty of humor. While that makes it feel generic, part of that is because it's also spoofing aspects of typical fantasy movies. Some plot elements are awfully convenient, but the movie leans into that to highlight those instances. Even then, the plot and this movie feel like it's trying to cast a large net to get the largest possible audience. It might help if I was more familiar with the source material.
Skip it.

Review
This opens with Edgin (Chris Pine) trying to talk himself and Holga (Michelle Rodriguez) out of prison. Pine is charismatic in all of his movies, and here he plays a rogue thief. Edgin is weaving quite the tale. We start to wonder if it's true as he's just a bit too slick. It's a fun introduction to what this will be as Edgin talking himself into and out of trouble are some of the best parts of the movie.

Sophia Lillis, Justice Smith, Michelle Rodriguez, Chris Pine play Doric, Simon, Holga, Edgin

The driver for the plot is Edgin trying to get his daughter back. Former partner Forge (Hugh Grant) is the reason Edgin and Holga are in jail and he's stolen Edgin's daughter. To overthrow Forge, Edgin must get the crew back together. That includes floundering wizard Simon (Justice Smith) and shapeshifter druid Doric (Sophia Lillis).

There's plenty of humor with this crew always on the edge of failure. Edgin often resorts to plan B, C, or further down the alphabet. I would guess part of what helped this movie was a lack of competition and being a passable Dungeons & Dragons movie. It's not bad, but it feels like a Marvel movie which tries to catch as large of an audience as possible, driven by profit and accessibility.

Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Justice Smith play Edgin, Holga, Simon

The grand adventure feels a bit generic, though I appreciate that his is also spoofing the genre. At one point they have a complicated puzzle bridge to cross that's accidentally broken before they cross. The crew just happens to have a teleportation staff that makes this bridge very easy. That staff gets a lot of mileage but also leads to some fun sequences of infiltration.

This has it's moments, but it relies on a well known cast and humor to plod through an uninteresting plot. I'm sure I'd appreciate it more if I were familiar with the source material. I caught a few easter eggs, though I'm sure there are many more.