Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Directed by Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley
Written by Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, and Michael Gilio
Story by Chris McKay and Michael Gilio
Starring: Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, Hugh Grant
Runtime: 2 hours and 14 minutes
In theaters March 31st

by Emily Maesar, Associate Editor, TVJawn

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is somehow a film that’s both 10 years in the making, but also fifty. When Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson first published Dungeons & Dragons in 1974, I doubt that they imagined we’d be here. And where is here, exactly? Well, here is where their intellectual property is now by a major toy company: Hasbro.

Now, I’m pretty certain that Gygax dreamed of a successful D&D feature film, especially once TSR ramped up their entertainment division—which he helped lead. In fact, I know he did. He spent the early 1980s trying to get a live-action film off the ground, but it wasn’t in the cards for him then. Instead, 1983 saw the release of the Dungeons & Dragons animated series. It was a show about a group of teens and pre-teens who get transported to a magical world through a dark ride roller coaster. The show ran for three seasons on CBS and led in its time slot for two of those years. Despite the rise of the Satanic panic, the animated series was a certified hit.

That didn’t stop the good folks at D&D “R” Us from trying everything under the sun to make a live-action Dungeons & Dragons movie, though—which they eventually did in 2000. To the tune of a minimum loss of $11 million, not including any marketing budget. So… not great. Though they did, for some reason, make two direct-to-DVD sequels. However, the failure of the first live action Dungeons & Dragons film left a terrible taste in everybody’s mouth, and a yearning in their hearts.

Over a decade later, in 2013, there was renewed interest in trying to make a D&D blockbuster film. Warner Bros. was the studio of note in this attempt… which was quickly shot down when Hasbro sued them. Apparently, they were making a D&D film with Universal, thank you very much! It wasn’t until 2019, however, that creative partners Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley were in talks to direct (and eventually co-write) the future film. And even then, it took until 2023 for the film to be released.

Now, since the announcement of the film, Wizards of the Coast (the subsidiary of Hasbro that operates the D&D IP) has pulled some nonsense with their Open Game License (OGL), which has angered (rightfully) a lot of fans. They’ve gone back on a fair amount of it, or altered it, because of this anger, but there’s some amount of damage you simply can’t heal. Compounding that with the living memory of the terrible 2000 film and how good fan-made content has been since the recent rise of tabletop gaming, many D&D fans have been… trepidatious about this film.

All of which is to say that many people, including myself, were waiting with bated breath to see how this was going to turn out. But fear not, adventuring parties, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves absolutely rips. And not just because my D&D group had just finished the recent “Rime of the Frostmaiden” campaign, where we went to Revel’s End, and lost our minds at the start of the film. It’s a story that doesn’t shy away from the mythology, names, and locations of the well-worn Forgotten Realms, but is also deeply accessible to newcomers who may not know (or even really care to know) about the intricacies of the lore of Dungeons & Dragons. It is a fun, fantasy heist film of epic proportions which can be enjoyed by literally anyone. No knowledge checks or gatekeeping required!

In Honor Among Thieves we meet Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine) who, after the loss of his wife, bands together with a group of misfits to steal an object that could bring her back to life. However, things don't go his way when he and Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez) are the only ones of the group who are captured and sent to Revel’s End, a prison in the frozen tundra of Icewind Dale. After mounting an escape, they discover that Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant) betrayed them during their last heist, is raising Edgin’s daughter and poisoning her against him, and has become Lord of Neverwinter with the help of a Red Wizard of Thay. They join forces with Simon Aumar (Justice Smith), Doric (Sophia Lillis), and Xenk Yendar (Regé-Jean Page) to right their wrongs and ultimately save the day.

It’s the perfect formula for both the kind of fantasy film that Honor Among Thieves is, in a general way, but also how D&D campaigns tend to shake out. Every performance is dialed all the way in, with many people giving some of the most interesting performances of their careers thus far. Pine shines as a husband and father who recognizes he’s been one more than the other and tries to set that right in his daughter’s eyes. Rodriguez is playing into her type but doing it in a more charming way than I feel like she’s done before. And Smith is pitch perfect as a wild magic Sorcerer who has to learn to come into his power properly. The rest of the supporting cast (Grant, Lillis, and Page) are doing a lot of good, funny work without a lot of screen or story time.

Something that I think is so incredibly smart about Honor Among Thieves is how well it threads the needle between being wildly accessible while being steeped in D&D references. It’s partially because of many of the tropes and shorthand for fantasy come from the last fifty years of Dungeons & Dragons campaigning and culture, but it’s also because the writing team is incredibly good at their jobs. Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, and Michael Gilio seem to understand, certainly better than most, what modern day D&D fans like about the current iteration of the TTRPG, and how they play it.

This group of characters feels like a truly great D&D party that’s having a helluva time and telling a great story. It’s all the best elements of a liveplay campaign, but with a higher budget and much wider appeal. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is the kind of fun fantasy films that all others should be judged against. It’s the live-action D&D feature film that we deserve and it’s a damn good time!