Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Parent Guide

Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine) tried to live a decent life. He worked for the Harpers, a covert agency tasked with maintaining peace across the land. He married Zia (Georgia Landers), the love of his life, and had a daughter, Kira (Chloe Coleman). But then a Red Wizard who Edgin had incarcerated broke out and decided he wanted revenge, killing Zia and leaving Edgin to figure out how to be a stay-at-home-dad for Kira. At least, that’s the version of the story Edgin told the parole board when they asked him why he’d been caught with his friend, a barbarian named Holga (Michelle Rodriguez), robbing a secret vault owned by the Harpers. In Edgin’s defense, the story is mostly true, and he hadn’t planned to be caught in the vault. He’d only agreed to break in because another friend, a conman known as Forge Ftizwilliam (Hugh Grant), told him that the vault contained a tablet which would let him bring Zia back from the dead.

Now Edgin and Holga are trying to find out what happened to the rest of their crew. Forge is easy enough to track down, as with a little help from a dubious sorceress called Sofina (Daisy Head) he’s since become the Lord of Neverwinter, a bustling coastal city, where he’s been looking after Kira. He has no intention of returning either Kira or the tablet. Forge and Sofina have big plans for Neverwinter, and they don’t intend to let Edgin and Holga stand in their way. The plucky duo survive Sofina’s attempt to have them killed, but they’re going to need more than pluck and luck to get Kira back. So they set out to find Simon (Justice Smith), another member of their crew and a decent sorcerer when he puts his mind to it. He, in turn, recommends that they find Doric (Sophia Lillis), a druid with shapeshifting powers. Between the four of them, they ought to be able to break into Neverwinter and recover not just Kira, but a big pile of treasure…right?

Despite my established status as a grade-A dweeb, I’ve never played a game of D&D in my life, and I can’t really tell you how well this film represents the franchise. On the other hand, I’ve seen parts of the 2000 Dungeons & Dragonsmovie starring Jeremy Irons, and I can guarantee that this movie does a better job. For starters, it’s watchable, which is something its predecessor never even came close to achieving.

With a star-studded cast led by the endlessly charming Chris Pine, the movie gets by in a goofy, off-beat way, juggling jokes, peril, and moral self-improvement with comparative grace. It’s also, however, at least half an hour too long. There’s no reason for this film to run for over two hours and stretching it to that length absolutely kills the pacing. It gives the movie a near-terminal case of second-act-drag, which is a real shame.

Parents more concerned about what their children are watching than how long they’re watching it don’t have too much to be worried about. There is a lot of hand-to-hand combat, some of which is surely fatal, but nothing particularly gruesome is seen – unless you count the scene where our heroes resurrect some dusty corpses for a few quick questions. There are half a dozen profanities and some brief drinking, but there’s nothing you haven’t seen in a Marvel movie.

Honor Among Thieves is familiar and predictable, but it’s also reasonably funny and inventive within the bounds of the story. I’m sure some of the fans were hoping for more, but frankly I would have settled for a lot less. The movie might run long, but it’s still entertaining, and I’m all but thrilled: when I heard Paramount was making another D&D movie, I thought I was in for two hours of uninterrupted fantasy-themed garbage. I’ll take familiar. If two hours of garbage is what you were looking for, though, you could always go watch the Warcraft movie.