Review of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) by Hnestlyonthesly — 22 May 2023

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves delivers on what it promises. There are dungeons and dragons and thieves. If you had the pleasure of watching the trailers for the past four months and also absorbed the San Diego Comic-Con press tour, you are well aware of the sight gags: fat dragons, orifices, Detective Pikachu is going to meet Bridgerton is going to meet Captain Kirk, and at some point Hugh Grant is going to be squeamishly cruel while Chris Pine is restrained like a little Japanese school girl by a tentacle monster. Also, Michelle Rodriguez is in this movie and she is going to brawl like a **** tank. All of that happens! The movie is almost as long as a full campaign but it never quite feels long? Except when Chris Pine is singing on his lute. Or really when anyone is singing along with him. Do I have some questions? Sure. Did this movie make me break out into hysterical and unexpected laughter more than once? Absolutely. Am I skeptical of the ability of this movie to replicate its success in later films? Sure. Will that impinge on your ability to enjoy this movie? Possibly!

What’s important right now is for you to know what worked and what didn’t. So, what worked? What’s clear even from the trailer is that the film has split its allotment of villains into two baskets: in one basket is the cartoonishly evil Red Wizards–shooting lightning out of their hands, throwing kittens into rivers, setting people’s babies on fire, etc.–the Voldemort basket, if you will, and in the other basket is the scoundrel-y, double-crossing, ultimately crueler because of its mundanity, the Draco basket, let’s call it. I’m a fan of splitting villains generally, whether it’s for powerscaling reasons (think goombas vs. Bowser), or because you want to be able to have some of the bad guys momentarily turn on other bad guys (think Thanos vs. Ronan the Accuser), or just because it extends the story somewhat (think Casino Royale’s distinct first and second acts).

Rick Remender’s Seven to Eternity was probably the most fun variant of the enemies to friends plot in a D&D-type story I’ve ever encountered for many of the same reasons cited above. The Mud King’s capture forces a motley band of heroes to endure some very wise cracks from the most silver of silver tongues. The forces at work to return him to power are sundry and legion, but there are all sorts who have motives for inflicting maximal pain on him before he can be brought to justice. In Honor Among Thieves, I was a little worried that the trailer had given away too much of the Red Wizard’s arc (and in some ways it does), but there’s a fair bit of interaction between the wizard and the rest of the cast, which doesn’t rely on combat to resolve itself. Probably the most satisfying villain is actually Hugh Grant, whose quick and easy lies devastate and vex by virtue of his former place as a trusted confidante.

Does Hugh Grant have a power? Is he a wizard? I ask all twelve Friends who made it to this over-invited movie event. “No, he’s just a guy.” But all the other guys can turn into bears and stuff, right? So what’s his deal? “He doesn’t have a deal. He’s just a thing.” The film does have a fair bit of excellent power scaling in it. Not every character is made equally. I think a lot about how one of my favorite parts of Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars is the fact that your party is composed of 1) a plumber, 2) a princess, 3) a prince made of clouds, 4) a lizard king, and 5) a **** fallen star wizard puppet that has a move that does over 9000 damage. Just so, Honor Among Thieves features a dude who can’t play the lute miming playing the lute, a brawler, a minor sorcerer, a shapeshifter, a… just normal guy with plans, I guess?, and Regé-Jean Page, skilled swordsman and powerful magical being. It means that the party has a formidable opponent to guard against big and small problems as they occur. A friend described this “everybody gets a moment” quality to the movie as reminiscent of the best elements of Phase 2 in the MCU, those Avengers moments when you’d get to see Iron Man do something badass and then maybe Cap would do something that would get the crowd cheering, etc. Kind of reminds me of how Gandalf in his infinite wisdom doesn’t call Eagles to deliver the Ring of Power to Mordor in a day’s time, but instead concocts a generations-long plan to have halflings journey for thousands of miles to assemble the forces of Man, Elf, and Dwarf to… eventually have Eagles finish the job, etc.