“Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” - A campaign worth playing.

The last serious attempt at a Dungeons & Dragons movie was in 2000, resulting in a critical and commercial bomb (10% on Rotten Tomatoes, grossing just $33.8 million on a $45 million budget) and a legion of angry dungeon masters. Impossibly, two direct-to-DVD sequels were filmed and released in 2005 and 2012, presumably as a prank on nerds. Now that Stranger Things has helped to rehabilitate the image of Dungeons & Dragons, Hollywood decided to roll its twenty-sided dice on another serious attempt at bringing D&D to the silver screen.

The reason Hollywood wants another go at a Dungeons & Dragons film (and potential franchise) is the built-in audience of tens of millions of current D&D players. The tightrope Hollywood must walk is not pissing all over those players’ game the way the 2000 movie emptied its bladder on them. In a sign of good faith, Paramount Pictures and Entertainment One spent $151 million to ensure Honor Among Thieves respects those players and their beloved game. For that amount of money, Honor Among Thieves should be a campaign for the ages.

Since I have played exactly no games of D&D, I cannot tell if the movie satisfies D&D fans with its fan service components. For that matter, I’m not even sure which components are purely fan service. The amount I know about D&D can fit comfortably in a thimble. Whoops - that’s a Monopoly reference. See what I mean? But it looked and sounded like there were a ton of winks and nods to fans. The film’s heroes reference past campaigns and locations and individuals at a furious pace. As little as I know, even I recognized the name Baldur’s Gate, though I haven’t the foggiest idea how or why. And of course, there are dungeons and there are dragons.

Thanks to Stranger Things, I am at least familiar with the basic structure of every D&D campaign. A dungeon master acts as storyteller and host to a party of adventurers who go on a quest. In Honor Among Thieves, Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine) acts as the dungeon master, though he is also one of the adventurers. Throughout the film, Edgin provides exposition and back story while also gathering a party to complete his personal campaign. I assume this is a good thing and mirrors other campaigns because Edgin pretty much never stops talking.

The main quest is Edgin reuniting his family. He seeks a tablet that can be used to resurrect his murdered wife and must also convince his estranged daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman) to come home with him. The very short backstory is Edgin became a thief after the death of his wife, culminating in his arrest and imprisonment and Kira becoming a ward of the Lord of Neverwinter, Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant). Forge was part of Edgin’s original party that attempted to steal the tablet, Forge betraying Edgin with the help of a Red Wizard named Sofina (Daisy Head) and taking the tablet, along with a bunch of treasure for himself. I promise that really is the short version and would sound a lot cooler if you imagine me wearing a robe, holding a staff, and waving my arms around theatrically.

The party Edgin assembles for the quest sounds as D&D as one can imagine. There is a barbarian named Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez), a paladin named Xenk Yendar (Rege-Jean Page), a sorcerer named Simon Aumar (Justice Smith), and a shapeshifting druid named Doric (Sophia Lillis). They’re all part of guilds or descended from someone important and each has a special talent that is required for them to complete the quest. If you have questions about them, just be patient. Edgin will explain everything and everyone.

Like any good quest, the adventurers must first find a couple of special items before they can confront the final boss. These little side quests are what makes this movie fun. One quest leads them to a graveyard and some fun laughs. Another leads them to an underground city filled with action and a fat dragon. If this is what a real-life D&D campaign looks like, I’ve been missing out.

Like any action movie with this many moving parts, there are flaws. Sofina is underdeveloped and her motivation is very generic. The conclusion includes a component that is far too predictable. And Xenk and Doric are underused, especially Xenk, who just leaves them after a side quest. Fortunately, the rest of the movie is strong enough to prevent these flaws from impacting the overall product.

While Honor Among Thieves isn’t so great it makes me want to get into LARPing, it was good enough that I want there to be a sequel. Maybe even play a game or two. I quite enjoyed the story and performances. The actors were clearly enjoying themselves, even Michelle Rodriguez who in most movies appears to be pissed off at someone or something just off screen. It’s a very entertaining film that understands what it is, but doesn’t lean so far into it that falls into a pile of Funyuns in its mom’s basement. The roll of the dice came up favorably.

Rating: Don’t ask for any money back or you’ll anger the dungeon master.

“My Spy” - Pet peeves.

One of my wife’s biggest movie pet peeves is when kids are smarter than adults. While some kids are most definitely smarter than some adults, this theme almost always goes way too far when asking you to suspend your disbelief. Home Alone, Rookie of the Year, The Goonies, Spy Kids, Holes, any of the Harry Potter films - all annoy her to a certain extent. While I am slightly more forgiving (The Goonies is just too good), I agree. My Spy is no exception to this rule and probably would have sent my wife out of the theater in fifteen minutes.

JJ ((Dave Bautista) is a CIA agent in the middle of an undercover operation in Russia, trying to thwart a weapons deal involving plutonium. Just as the deal is about to be sealed, JJ inadvertently blows his cover by asking if he can help whatever is the next phase of the buyer’s plan (the question causes a bad guy to accuse him of being someone else). JJ tries to cover up the mistake, but then just admits that he is a spy. This being a kids’ movie, JJ is not executed on the spot. Instead, he kills all but one bad guy and recovers the plutonium. This scene kind of works for its action and an attempt at humor through some silly cinematography and choreography, which is about what one expects from a spy movie aimed at children.

When JJ returns to his office in America, he receives a standing ovation from everyone. Everyone except his boss, David (Ken Jeong), that is. David shows JJ video of the botched weapons deal, pointing out the escape of Marquez (Greg Bryk) and that there is more plutonium out there. This scene does not work for multiple reasons. One, Ken Jeong was a terrible casting decision to play JJ’s boss, choosing to be neither intimidating nor funny. Two, everyone in the office somehow did not know that the mission was actually a failure (which points to the boss being a moron or everyone in that CIA branch being a moron). Three, JJ is suspended, despite his mission at least being partially successful, confusing the audience in the process.

After a couple minutes, we end up at the next briefing, where JJ is given one last chance - surveillance of Marquez’s ex-sister-in-law, Kate (Parisa Fitz-Henley), with his new partner/techie/fangirl, Bobbi (Kristen Schaal). This scene also did not make sense, although it’s possible I missed something David said during the briefing because the kid behind me sneezed on my neck. Yeah. That happened. Anyway, I doubt anything David said could have made it logical to surveil a woman who long stopped being associated with Marquez.

The main plot of the film kicks off at this point, which is Kate’s nine-year old daughter Sophie (Chloe Coleman) discovering a hidden camera in a dog’s bouncy ball *face in my hands*, following the wifi signal until she discovers JJ and Bobbi’s hideout, and threatening to expose them with video she took of them at work unless they do what she wants them to do. I understand that this is the entire premise of the film and must be accepted in order for the film to work. I also understand that this is the point in which my wife exits stage right because that premise fails on all levels.

The tack this film should have taken is one similar to that of Kindergarten Cop. JJ and Bobbi should have been inserted into the building with cover stories and interacted with Kate to find out if Kate knew anything about Marquez or if there was any reason to believe he would even contact her. I’m even willing to accept the blown cover part, but would have changed it to JJ and Bobbi explaining to Sophie that they were watching Sophie and Kate to keep them safe from bad guys. Almost the entire movie could have been kept as is (minus the blackmail, that is) while maintaining the idea that a nine-year old is not smarter than CIA agents, thus making the film palatable to those of us that are, in fact, smarter than a third grader.

The movie really falls flat during the second act, where there is no action and the threat of a black market nuclear weapon is practically forgotten. During this time, we must endure Bobbi pouting over Sophie getting all of JJ’s attention, JJ training Chloe to be a spy, Chloe forcing JJ to hang out with her and her mom, including the predictable budding romance between JJ and Kate. On top of that is the worst scene in the entire film - JJ telling a roomful of Chloe’s classmates and their parents that he is a CIA agent for a living when he cannot come up with a plausible cover story (which the CIA absolutely would have given him) or even just say that he recently left the military after tours in Afghanistan. Even the sneezed-out germs on my neck winced at this scene.

The news is not all bad though. Once the film remembers that it is an action movie and brings Marquez back into the fray, it becomes somewhat entertaining. Despite a lot of the idiocy in the screenplay, there are some solid moments of comedy. It is also encouraging to see Bautista follow up Stuber with another solid lead performance role. Plus, the kids will love Chloe Coleman, who also delivers a good performance. Unfortunately, none of those things would be enough to overcome my wife’s pet peeve and I am not that forgiving. Now, I need to go wash my neck again.

Rating: Ask for nine dollars back and a sneeze guard.