Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves – Film Review

A charming thief and a band of unlikely adventurers embark on an epic quest to retrieve a long lost relic, but their charming adventure goes dangerously awry when they run afoul of the wrong people.

I’ve never been a big fan of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy tabletop role-playing game which may come as a shock to lots of people who know me, seeing as how I’m huge into fantasy stories and I love games. But, despite playing Dungeons & Dragons numerous times with some of my closest friends, I’ve never found myself getting super into it.

Don’t get me wrong – I definitely appreciate the game and respect it for what it’s done for so many people throughout so many generations, but it’s just not my cup of tea. That’s one of the many reasons why I was so shocked to discover just how fantastic Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley‘s Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is. It’s one of the best movies of the year by far, believe it or not.

There’s something about this movie that so eerily screams early 2000s action blockbuster, and I mean that in the best possible way. I genuinely miss this level of filmmaking – the kind where you can tell that the directors had creative control and had the time of their lives making it.

Goldstein and Daley previously helmed the absolutely hilarious Game Night and you can definitely see that sense of humor shining through here. This is a film that’s loaded with tons of jokes, with nearly every single one of them landing tremendously well and causing my full theatre to erupt.

But even though the film is certainly quite goofy in nature, it never forgets to tell an emotionally powerful and dramatic story first and foremost. As we watch Edgin and company slowly try to find this resurrection tablet to bring back his deceased wife and find his young daughter, it’s nearly impossible not to get swept up in the journey.

It’s a long movie, clocking in at just under two and a half hours, but you never once feel the running time here. This is because the film is chalked full of extremely entertaining scenes that are sure to have something to offer for every viewer, whether you’re a kid, teenager, adult, or elder. It’s amazing stuff.

And honestly, the action sequences here are among some of the best of the year. There’s one scene in particular in the second act involving Regé-Jean Page‘s Xenk Yendar that left me totally speechless. The stunt and choreography team that worked on this film needs to get some huge recognition for their stellar work.

As for the cast – they’re all outstanding. Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Justice Smith, and Sophia Lillis have the best chemistry of the year so far. They all feel like real outlaw best friends who will do anything for one another. Pine’s character is a superbly cocky man with a big heart first and foremost.

Rodriguez is sort of an intimidating barbarian that may have an even better heart than Pine’s character, while Smith’s Simon Aumar is a magic sorcerer who fails to understand how to use his powers properly. Lillis, however, may be by favorite of the bunch in the role of Doric, a tiefling druid raised in the Neverwinter Wood by a wood elf enclave who desperately wants to restore peace and glory to her hometown.

By the time the film comes to a close, you’ll want to go on countless more adventures with these characters. Sometimes sequels seem totally unnecessary, but in the case of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, I’m excited to see a follow-up and I hope that I don’t have to wait too long to see it.

With fantastic action, a hilarious sense of humor, emotional weight, and extremely strong chemistry between its cast members, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is one of the best films of the year so far.