Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves – Movie Review

Disclaimer: This movie review is a loose transcription from our podcast where we do all our movie reviews – link is at the bottom of this page to listen in!

James:

Take it away Nayan, what’d you think of the movie?

Nayan:

I thought it was great. It absolutely blew me away. I’m pretty sure when the trailer came out, one of our topics on our Let’s B-Reel podcast was that this could have the potential to be one of those fun little movies. Now that’s clearly lived up to its potential here. I think we’re just laughing the whole entire time because it’s generally genuinely funny. So I thought the performances were great from the main four of them. I thought Chris Pine was really good. Michelle Rodriguez was just Michelle Rodriguez a female badass character. Set-wise in terms of production design, makeup and costuming – I thought it was really good. It really captured that Dungeons and Dragons feel and look to it –  even some of the weird creatures like the eagle Jonathan or the pudgy dragon. Even Doric, when she transformed into a fly or worm into an Eagle to that massive owl thing. The CGI overall was actually pretty decent. There were obviously a few scenes in there where the CGI was a bit dodgy but for the most part, it was really good. Like, especially the dragon scene I think it was like coming out of the darkness. That looks really really really good. Yeah. And I really enjoyed the score as well it was it sort of had that you know little loot like, if no one’s played The Witcher they’ll know what I’m talking about, like that sort of type of music that that fantasy sort of fortnight, music the fantasy sort of type of music and that they also like modernized it with stuff that you hear on previous films. I think it’s not exactly like Tenet but had that similar fast sort of beat sort in its musical pieces as well. What about you James?

James:

I’m pretty much on board with this one. I really did enjoy it. And I was never looking forward to this, there’s something about fantasy movies and kind of like medieval movies in a sense that are just risky. They’re tough gambles in terms of quality, you know if they had they had really well, but if they mess which is like most of the time, then it’s just another throwaway movie. So this movie could have been that the only thing I’ve really had going for it was the directors who did Game Night. We talked about it the other day a great comedy movie. But you know, this movie isn’t so much a comedy despite it having those really laugh-out-loud moments. Like you said it was genuinely funny. It wasn’t just like, a chuckle or a sniff of laughter We’re actually cracking up laughing. You know, whether it was Jonathan or the dragon or just any of the things that happened in the graveyard scene.

Nayan:

That was by far the funniest thing. That was 100% the funniest moment, I was genuinely cracking up for that whole 5-10 minute scene.

James:

It was so good, and it’s mixed in with a pretty good story as well. It’s nothing amazing, but you know, I thought they got the characters done really well. I think all four of them were rounded out to some extent. And you know, usually when you have this kind of group which kind of bands together you know, there’s always like that leader and he’s always the character that’s always explored, but I thought it did well here like rounding out those extra characters. Kind of giving the group more of a heartfelt feel to it. But yeah, like visually, you’re right. It was, you know it was pretty good. There’s obviously some dodgy stuff and most movies these days. They don’t they’re not perfect with CGI, but I think this goes a little bit above the, you know, I kind of just the average of what we’re getting in terms of CGI-heavy movies these days. Yeah. I don’t know if you notice, but a lot of the creatures in general sit quite practical, right? Yeah. Jonathan. It was definitely practical-heavy. It was a great night it was definitely proud of you just tell by the look of it. And it just kind of gives us a little bit of authenticity to a little bit of depth to the image and stuff like that. So I really liked it. I think you know, with a budget of 151 million. This movie is not destined to do well at the box office in general, despite the role-playing tabletop game, you know, having 50 million players, which which is a lot but you know, it’s not going to translate well to the box office. They released a movie about Dungeons and Dragons ages ago and it ended up flopping.

Nayan:

If there was a sequel would you want it to focus on the same set of characters or different characters?

James:

Oh, good question. That is a good question. I don’t know. I like the idea of doing different characters each time but yeah, I would actually try to choose new characters because I think they told a finished story for this set of characters. So I would like a fresh set of characters if there will be another one. Something I really loved was the action, Not in terms of CG or any but the choreography of some of the fight scenes and how it mixed all these powers and magic coming together. How do you find that?

Nayan:

Yeah, I really liked that as well, obviously, and hence stuff it wasn’t quite as good as John Wick but it had that sort of feel where they put time and effort into getting the fight choreography right and it definitely paid off on screen especially when they were holding knives and swords and stuff. You still had that sort of lateral mobility in that era with the magic was really cool to just see characters transform into different animals during mid-fight.

James:

Yeah, no, I agree. Like just I think it came in that kind of last fight scene where everything’s kind of coming together in terms of every single person. I thought that balance between all that was good during it. I just want to get in before we round out our review here. These two directors, I was watching this I’m like, this is these are kind of the perfect directors for an MCU movie. They capture the comedy in a genuine way, unlike the typical cheap baby fart noise kinda humor. They can nail the CGI and technical action side of things as well like different abilities and powers coming together that kind of creates a really dynamic and interesting, action set pieces. Would you like to see them do an MCU project?

Nayan:

Yeah, or even DC? I mean I think they would be able to nail the humor and tone of Guardians of the Galaxy, this film had that sort of tone to it comedy-wise. So should James Gunn not return I would like to see these directors take a stab at Guardians of the Galaxy or a lesser-known DC project.

James:

You’re absolutely right. That’s exactly what I was thinking, this is kind of like a kind of James Gunn kind of feel to it, which is why I think it would fit in with this kind of, you know, DCU chapter one that they’re doing. So yeah, you got a good point there. But yeah, no, I mean, is there anything else you want to add to your thoughts about Dungeons and Dragons? Or do you think we covered it pretty nicely?

Nayan: 

Nah I thought we nailed the main aspects of it quite nicely, the humor is great in it and again the best scene st that graveyard scene, that scene alone is a must-watch.

James:

All right so out of 10 what would you give this film?

Nayan: 

I would give it a 7.8/10, what about you?

James:

For me, it would be a 7.5 out of 10.