Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Chris Pine

John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein's Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is one of the more pleasant surprises of 2023. Actually, it should not be a surprise to those who saw the directorial team's previous feature, Game Night, a sleeper hit that shares Dungeon & Dragons' breezy charm. Neither film is flashily directed, but both are pleasing entertainments boasting solid ensemble work. Dungeons & Dragons... was a commercial disappointment, buried at the box office by the more cartoon-like and mechanistic Super Mario Brothers. Whether it spawns sequels or not, Dungeons & Dragons has a winning playfulness missing from most of the current era's blockbusters adapted from comic books or games.

The game of Dungeons & Dragons doesn't have a specific narrative arc, it is purposefully open ended, so the makers of the film were free to filch elements from other sources. The flick displays its influences blatantly, ranging from Ray Harryhausen, Peter Jackson, and Sam Raimi to many, many more. Lorne Balfe's snappy score has similarly varied influences, including Danny Elfman and Carl Orff. An adept leading man was needed to blend this magpie stew into a coherent whole and the versatile Chris Pine was a wise choice. This era calls for a more self-effacing leading man if that character is a cis white male and Pine is game. We first meet Pine's character knitting a pair of mittens in a dungeon. Can you picture macho asshole Captain James T. Kirk doing that? The brawn is provided, in a gender flip, by Michelle Rodriquez in the sidekick role. Dungeons & Dragons' CGI action sequences are routine and the film is twenty minutes too long, but it is a pleasant repast with Pine as the special sauce that binds all the disparate elements together.