Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Justice Smith, and Sophia Lillis team up against Hugh Grant’s rogue in this fantasy flick.
Making a Dungeons & Dragons movie is risky business, considering the original trilogy was a flop in the 2000s, but Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley have somehow pulled it off.
The fantasy comedy, based on the popular table-top role-playing game, stars Chris Pine as Edgin Darvis, a bard and former Harper who raised his daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman) with his best friend, the barbarian Holga (Michelle Rodriguez), following the death of his wife.
Following a heist to steal the resurrection tablet, Edgin and Holga are sabotaged by the rogue Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant) and sent to prison.
During their two years behind bars, Forge raises Kira like his own and turns her against her father.
After they break out of prison, Edgin and Holga discover Forge has become the Lord of Neverwinter.
He orders them to be executed – but they manage to escape Neverwinter and put together a ragtag team to get back into the land, break into Forge’s vault, steal the tablet, and rescue Kira from his clutches.
The problem is that Forge has the evil Red Wizard Sofina (Daisy Head) on his side and they only have an amateur sorcerer named Simon (Justice Smith) and a shape-shifting Tiefling Druid named Doric (Sophia Lillis).
Goldstein and Daley were determined to make a film that appealed to both fans of the game and absolute newcomers.
You will be able to follow the story and appreciate its goofy charm without any experience with the game, but you will get more out of it if you understand the references.
There are a lot of different names to keep up with and they won’t mean anything if you’re a beginner.
However, even if you are a D&D novice, the film is still an entertaining adventure with lots of laugh-out-loud moments.
The story is a mess and basically just follows the duo as they put their team together and collect equipment for their mission.
It could have been more consistently funny and the CGI is rather poor but it’s an easy way to spend 134 minutes.
Pine is hilarious as Edgin and it was refreshing to see a male lead in an action movie that isn’t macho.
He is the plan man and Holga is the muscle – which Rodriguez does perfectly.
Grant is used sparingly as the hammy villain Forge but he steals every scene he’s in, and Regé-Jean Page is amusing as Xenk Yendar, a paladin with no concept of sarcasm.
Honour Among Thieves will definitely tick the boxes for existing gamers and will likely win over a new legion of fans too.
In cinemas from Friday 31st March.
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