Luke McWilliams gives his review of the 2023 fantasy film, Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves, starring Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez.

High within a tower prison in the Forgotten Realms, bard Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine) and barbarian Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez) escape in search for their former party members, rogue Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant) and wizard Sofina (Daisy Head), to collect Edgin’s daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman) and the spoils of their last raid gone wrong – a tablet of resurrection.

The movie is a fantastic, robust exploration and presentation of the experience of playing the long-running Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. Our party, a silver-tongued bard, strong barbarian, amateur sorcerer, and Tiefling druid, must come together to share their differing skills, experiences and attributes to achieve a common goal with differing motives: Edgin is looking to rescue his daughter and resurrect his late wife; Holga is exiled from her tribe and will stop at nothing to get her surrogate daughter back; descended from a respected wizard, Simon (Justice Smith) lacks confidence in his abilities, and Doric (Sophia Lillis) fights for her home in the Neverwinter Wood. Like the game, our players use ingenuity and chance to succeed in high-stakes escapes, heists, puzzle-solving, slaying and maybe a few double-crosses. Through the thick of surviving such capers, the group, like a party of players, also share times of merriment and friendship.

The movie is unobtrusively jam-packed with locations, creatures, weapons and history from the D&D world that add to the movie’s environment while serving up fun references for knowledgeable fans of the game.

Verdict: A surprisingly enjoyable family action comedy that honours and celebrates its rich source material. 4.5 stars.

– Luke McWilliams, themovieclub.net.