To win the hearts of viewers, the band of thieves from the Forgotten Realms universe doesn't need to walk a thorny path at all. Let's talk about how the film adaptation 'Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,' based on the iconic tabletop game, can...
Bard Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine) and barbarian Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez) escape from prison, where they ended up due to a failed artifact heist. Driven by a desire to return to Edgin's young daughter, the friends do not yet know that the botched robbery was a trap set by their associate Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant) and a red wizard (Daisy Head), through which the rogue became the illegitimate ruler of Neverwinter and took custody of the bard's daughter.
To get his daughter back and retrieve the Tablet of Resurrection, Edgin and Holga recruit an insecure half-elf wizard, Simon (Justice Smith), and a justice-seeking tiefling druid, Doric (Sophia Lillis). The heroes do not yet know that they have begun a vast operation to save Neverwinter.
What Are We Playing?
The role-playing game «Dungeons & Dragons» is already an integral part of modern cultural code. The game is mentioned in the series «The Big Bang Theory», «Stranger Things», and the Pixar Pixar film «Onward» essentially represents a full campaign playthrough. The millennial generation might recall the three-season 1983 animated series (released in Russia in 1996), while others can't erase from memory the failed 2000 film adaptation by Courtney Solomon.
John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein seem to have learned from their predecessor's mistakes and created a project that easily endears itself to anyone.
Follow the Script
Anyone who has ever played Dungeons & Dragons knows that a player must write their character's backstory and strictly adhere to it. So too in the film, the heroes do exactly what is expected of them. The rogue does not become pure of heart; the bard's only weapon, completely unprepared for combat, is his lute; the barbarian scatters enemies like bowling pins; the insecure wizard cannot suddenly cast high-level spells.
Special mention deserves the paladin «I'll kill you all alone» Xenk, played by Regé-Jean Page. For a paladin, like a samurai, has no goal, only a path. So too Xenk, temporarily joining the team, follows his own way, seeing obstacles quite literally, which never fails to make the audience laugh.
Fill the Path with Jokes
An undeniable plus of the film «Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves» is its humor, which neatly compensates for the occasionally dark action. The basis is situational jokes built on visual perception. The viewer is not simply fed dry anecdotes but offered jokes that engage the imagination, done so skillfully that even in borderline situations, the humor does not plummet into the abyss.
Especially good are the jokes about the genre and the game itself. The creators clearly understood they needed to please everyone, so they blended canonical elements with humor. The heroes will inevitably descend into the Underdark, but there they will encounter brain-like creatures clearly unimpressed by the team's intellect. And if a dragon guarding a dungeon devours everyone who enters, it clearly could use a diet.
Who's in the Campaign?
More than half of the plot would not be as good without the cast, who perfectly fit the character roles. It seems the characters were written for specific archetypes that the audience has seen before.
Chris Pine is the same cunning, funny, and awkward Captain Kirk he was in «Star Trek». The muscular Michelle Rodriguez throws everyone around, just like her character in «Fast & Furious» (one almost expects her to say: «Drive or die»), and Justice Smith seems like he was just yesterday wandering a parallel road arm-in-arm with Pikachu.
About Hugh Grant in the credits, you could simply write 'Hugh Grant as Hugh Grant.' He is the same slick villain he was in Guy Ritchie's 'Operation Fortune' (you can read about the film in ) and the same charismatic scoundrel remembered from the distant 'Bridget Jones's Diary'.
'Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre' – another triumph for Guy Ritchie or a run-of-the-mill action movie with a star-studded cast?
Open materialAnd the cherry on top is Bradley Cooper, who plays his best comedic episode!
Take the Best on the Road
No matter how hard you try to faithfully follow the source material, there will always be detractors, so the creators adapted the game for a broad audience, including the fan community. The result is a classic in a modern wrapper – Dungeons & Dragons in the spirit of «Guardians of the Galaxy».
The film is peppered with terminology (tiefling, rogue, paladin) used in a context understandable to the layperson, and showcases artifacts (gelatinous cube, staff of «here and there») whose user manual requires no extra explanation. For the particularly picky, a final act Easter egg references the animated series.
«Dungeons» also teems with references to various milestones in the film industry: from classic westerns and films with Jackie Chan to «Shrek». And if you consider the background, the film is worth watching frame by frame to find all the markers.
Who Won?
«Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves» is a case where literally everyone came out a winner. The heroes look colorful thanks to the specific role each plays in the team (and in group scenes too) and the individuality they display. The creators earned praise for skillfully handling the material, creating something of their own while not neglecting the source material. The viewer, in turn, gets an engaging spectacle capable of evoking a storm of emotions, as if each one personally survived the dungeons, defeated the dragon, and completed the campaign.
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