This film is one of the nicest cinematic surprises in years – Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves is an absolute joy from beginning to end. Packed full of humour, action and heart, it delivers all of the laugh-out-loud moments and fantasy adventure that you could possibly wish for.

Premise: After escaping from prison following a heist gone wrong, thief Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine) and his barbarian friend Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez) find that reuniting with Edgin’s daughter is not going to be as straightforward as they hoped, thanks to their former partner-in-crime Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant) and his new associate, the Red Wizard Sofina (Daisy Head). Edgin and Holga soon find that they have to recruit Simon Aumar (Justice Smith), a second-rate half-elf sorcerer, and Doric (Sophia Lillis), a freedom-fighting tiefling druid, to help them pull off an even more impossible heist.

Review:

It’s probably fair to say that when it was first announced that they were going to have another attempt at translating the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game into a movie, no one was that excited. Many could still smell the stink emanating from the awful 2000 film adaptation (and its direct-to-DVD sequels), and generally speaking, movies based on games don’t have the best track record (from Battleship to Angry Birds). But then the first trailer hit the internet … and people saw the tone that this adaptation was going for.

As anyone who’s ever played the roleplaying game knows, D&D is at its best when it doesn’t take itself too seriously – and it’s clear that the filmmakers behind this movie version embraced that idea from the outset. That’s not to say that this is a spoof (we’re not talking about something that’s a parody of the genre, like Austin Powers was to spy movies) – but rather, Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves doesn’t take itself too seriously, even when it is giving its plot and its characters the respect they deserve.

“…expertly balances its emotional, comedy & action elements…”

That’s not an easy tightrope to walk, but directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (who most recently directed the excellent, if largely overlooked, comedy Game Night) expertly balance the tones throughout the movie, so that they can seamlessly move from an emotional moment to an exhilarating action sequence, all undercut by a self-knowing laugh-out-loud aside. Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley are also the co-writers of this film (with Michael Gilio and Chris McKay), and they had previously co-written Spider-Man: Homecoming, which was another film that expertly balanced its emotional, comedy and action elements.

If Game Night showed that Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley could directly comedy, this film firmly establishes their action directing credentials as well. While this film is very funny when it wants to be, it doesn’t do so at the expense of its action, and the film includes some amazing set-pieces. These range from impressively choreographed combat scenes featuring Michelle Rodriguez and Regé-Jean Page, to elaborate CGI sequences – but even then, the CGI is always used cleanly and clearly to enhance the storytelling, rather than it ever descending into the kind of eye-straining mess that mired the ending of films like Venom. The set-pieces throughout the film are creative and entertaining, perhaps none more so that an inventive sequence involving a stagecoach that was unlike anything I’d seen before.

“…reminds us what an engaging leading man Chris Pine can be…”

The filmmakers have assembled a fantastic cast for this movie, and they all manage to elevate the already excellent script. Chris Pine brings the perfect blend of charm, swagger, ineptitude and vulnerability to his role as the bard/thief who puts the ragtag team together, and his comic timing is a joy to behold. After the disappointment of last year’s The Contractor, this reminds us what an engaging leading man Chris Pine can be when given decent material to work with. Meanwhile, Michelle Rodriguez gives arguably her best performance in years, getting a lot more to do in this film than in recent instalments of the Fast & Furious franchise, while also getting to demonstrate her rarely seen comedy skills. I also loved the fact that the relationship between Chris Pine’s and Michelle Rodriguez’s characters is a platonic sibling-like bond, where each would go to hell and back for the other, but their romantic interests lie in other directions.

Justice Smith perhaps gets less to do than some of the other characters, but he still gets a handful of expertly delivered one-liners, and avoids being relegated to either the ‘comic relief’ or ‘exposition’ roles. Before this movie, I’d only seen Sophia Lillis in It: Chapter One (where I thought she was the best thing in that film), but she’s great here as the only member of the team with overtly altruistic motivations, and this performance will hopefully raise her profile even further with mainstream audiences.

“…a joyous viewing experience from beginning to end…”

Meanwhile, Hugh Grant seems to be loving his recent move away from romcoms into playing over-the-top villains (from the amoral private investigator in The Gentlemen, to the flamboyant Phoenix Buchanan in Paddington 2), and he looks like he’s having a whale of a time playing a literal rogue in this film. Daisy Head is also great in arguably her biggest role to date, playing her dark wizard character with an unsettling sense of otherworldly contempt for those around her. Regé-Jean Page appears in an extended cameo as an ultra-virtuous, but irony-free, paladin (effectively a holy knight), and steals almost every scene he’s in, either with his incredible action skills, his comically over-the-top righteousness, or his complete inability to understand the humour of those around him. He even manages to make walking funny in one scene.

This film is a joyous viewing experience from beginning to end, and other than a bit of moderate bad language that earns it a 12A rating, it’s really a film that the whole family can enjoy. While the fact that I’m a fan of the roleplaying game meant that I got a few extra in-jokes and references, I saw the film with a group of non-players who all loved it too – so an encyclopaedic knowledge of D&D lore is not needed to enjoy the film. Not only is this one of the best fantasy films of recent years, it’s also one of the best adventure films since Indiana Jones, and one of the funniest family-friendly comedies for quite some time.