Honor Amongst Thieves is the whole lot Dungeons & Dragons followers hoped for

This preliminary spoiler-free tackle Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Amongst Thieves comes from the film’s debut on the 2023 SXSW Convention. We’ll have extra in-depth protection because the film’s launch date approaches.

We’re residing in a brand new golden age for fantasy motion pictures and reveals. Gone is the time when epic fantasy adventures got low budgets that crippled manufacturing, or scripts that confirmed open disdain for the style. Now, elves, dragons, and magic are as large part of the popular culture zeitgeist as sitcoms have been within the ’90s. And but, due to the large success of Sport of Thrones, fantasy reveals and flicks are normally darkish and bleak, each in tone and in visuals. That’s simply one in all many the reason why the film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Amongst Thieves is such a shock to the system: It’s an try and show that we’re lastly able to embrace the enjoyable, chaos, and full-on weirdness of the fantasy style.

What makes Dungeons & Dragons distinctive as a sport is the best way the system works as an enormous sandbox. No two video games are the identical, though gamers are utilizing so lots of the identical instruments. The brand new film, from John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, based mostly on a script written by Daley, Goldstein, and Michael Gilio, looks like an invite to take a seat on the newest session in a marketing campaign they’ve been working for years.

It’s like watching an episode of Essential Function and realizing the group hasn’t simply crafted a very good story out of the blue, they have been enjoying collectively for a very long time even earlier than the cameras rolled. Even earlier than Honor Amongst Thieves’ bard Edgin (Chris Pine) tells a narrative about his background so the viewers can perceive his motivation (his precise phrases), and we see his previous adventures with many of the different characters, the film looks like the newest chapter in a really lengthy and complicated story.

Picture: Aidan Monaghan/Paramount Photos

That is what one of the best tales do: They invite you into an expansive, intricate world that feels prefer it existed lengthy earlier than these characters entered the story, and much past this explicit journey. Honor Amongst Thieves aces that worldbuilding. It name-drops a number of key D&D areas, like Baldur’s Gate and Waterdeep. However the true sense of connection for followers of the sport is available in the best way the movie makes use of actual units and areas to convey the grandeur and dimension of the world, and populates them with a ton of characters and background sights, from ruins to historic monuments. In a approach, the method feels just like James Cameron’s authentic Avatar, which tells a reasonably easy, uncomplicated, typically predictable story, so Cameron can concentrate on constructing an enormous world with out overwhelming the viewers.

In Honor Amongst Thieves, that method pays off. The story of a bunch of misfits happening a quest to discover a magical artifact with the intention to pull off a heist isn’t very advanced, and it’s typically predictable. However it’s efficient and to the purpose, designed to let the characters and the world communicate for themselves.

For viewers who’ve by no means performed Dungeons & Dragons, the film’s world gained’t be tougher to wrap your head round than Westeros or Center-earth, other than all of the creatures and cultures, from dragon folks to lizard folks to cat folks. (The Tabaxi on this movie rule.) There’s a equally giant number of creatures, like owlbears and mimics. The movie employs loads of sensible creature results that look unimaginable, although at instances, the CGI touch-ups don’t mix in addition to they might. It’s a testomony to the writers’ belief within the viewers that they don’t overexplain how issues work on this world, whether or not it’s the magic, the characters’ talents, factions just like the Harpers or the Emerald Enclave, or the anachronistic expertise that places this film nearer to Willow or The Princess Bride than Lord of the Rings.

However the variations between Dungeons & Dragons and different fantasy franchises is the candy spot the place Honor Amongst Thieves actually shines. That begins with the movie’s portrayal of magic, which is in contrast to anything on TV or movie. There aren’t any wizards waving their wands, capturing CGI rays of sunshine round. As a substitute, they want bodily elements, gestures, phrases, and even focus to solid all types of spells, easy and sophisticated. The film makes it very clear that there are limitations to magic — simply protecting a sorcerer’s mouth stops them from casting spells, as an illustration.

Picture: Aidan Monaghan/Paramount Photos

As cool because the magic is, nonetheless, Daley and Goldstein be sure that each member of the principle celebration will get a second to point out off their class expertise, from the barbarian Holga (Michelle Rodriguez) raging and kicking everybody’s ass in stunningly choreographed motion sequences to Pine’s bard motivating his teammates to perform their objectives. The standout, nonetheless, is Sophia Lillis’ tiefling druid Doric, who steals the stage together with her use of Wild Form within the film’s finest sequence, a single-shot escape by way of a fortress that showcases totally different creatures and proves that druids are one of the best class. (Struggle me.)

Arguably no character looks like they arrive straight from a gaming session as a lot because the paladin Xenk (Regé-Jean Web page). He’s this film’s tackle Jesse Plemons’ character from Sport Night time, an extremely severe character surrounded by foolish doofuses. He additionally looks like that one older participant who joins a desk of newbies with an OP character they’ve been enjoying for years and who takes the sport super-seriously, refusing to interrupt character and always reminding you they “don’t tolerate colloquialisms.”

For followers of the sport, or any of its a whole lot of spinoff merchandise, it’s a real pleasure to see these dynamics play out recognizably on the display screen with out disgrace, to see identified areas realized in such lavish element, and to see this world populated by the creatures that make D&D such a novel franchise. (The mind devourer is a scene-stealer.) The film additionally does an excellent job of capturing the totally different tones gamers may expertise in their very own campaigns, from horror to campy enjoyable, and from epic excessive fantasy to an exhilarating heist.

That final level is essential to the success of the film, which juggles a number of tones and genres whereas all the time remaining playfully earnest. The characters are always failing in fights and puzzles. It’s a hoot and a riot to see them be complete goofs, but in addition a triumph once they lastly succeed. There’s no embarrassment in regards to the fantasy components or their origins right here, and no try to cover or undercut the nerd stuff with sarcastic, dismissive feedback. Nobody mocks one another’s names or expertise. The looks of a displacer beast or a gelatinous dice doesn’t elicit quips about them being ridiculous creatures: They’re simply handled as harmful.

The movie is playful and earnest all through, specializing in the truth that for the characters, these are severe conditions. Rodriguez’s barbarian remains to be reeling from a damaged relationship, and when her storyline pays off, it’s hilarious — however the viewers remains to be invited to really feel and empathize together with her ache. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Amongst Thieves doesn’t re-create sport mechanics or a way of improvisation in addition to, say, The Legend of Vox Machina, however it’s the finest Dungeons & Dragons film we might have hoped for. Not solely is it a enjoyable fantasy film, it’s an excellent adaptation of a gaming session. And it’s an invite into a brand new and extra visible model of a world devoted gamers already love — and that the filmmakers appear to like, too.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Amongst Thieves will premiere in theaters on March 31.