Directed by: Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley
Starring: Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, Hugh Grant
Rated PG-13, 134 minutes
If I sometimes complain in these columns about the abundance of franchises and reboots in American cinema, it’s because I believe that this crowd of big-budget lookalikes is taking up too much space. To wit: even my local three-screen theater made room for the most recent Marvel Cinematic Universe installment, “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” even while the cineplex nearby was already showing the movie 24 times a day. And while the MCU is the most egregious example—since 2008, Marvel has produced an eye-watering 31 feature films and counting, already more than James Bond with his 45-year head start—franchises everywhere are in a state of denial, refusing to let anything come to its natural end. There’s “Star Wars,” with its nine central movies, plus spinoff series and TV shows; and classic Disney cartoons getting the live-action makeover treatment; and “Transformers,” and “The Fast and the Furious,” and “Indiana Jones,” and “Batman,” and on and on.
Not all of these sequels and reboots are bad, of course, and you could argue that the gems among them justify the industry-wide focus. (Denis Villeneuve’s reimaginings of “Dune” and “Blade Runner” come to mind; where is the Villeneuve Cinematic Universe?) But then, even the good ones remain variations on a persistent and economically motivated theme: this worked before, so let’s do it again. How many times must we see the same movie until we’ve had our fill? The answer is blowin’ in the wind.
“Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” is thankfully one of the better reboots, going back to the basics of what makes a movie so good people would want more of it. It isn’t a masterpiece—watching its anonymous storyland vistas of lush valleys and cities of shining white marble, one longs for the more detailed world-building of, say, “The Lord of the Rings” (another franchise rebooted into oblivion in the years since Peter Jackson’s initial trilogy)—but it is an honest and enjoyable crowd-pleaser, an adventure that never lags or overstays its welcome. It feels like a movie made by people who wanted to make a good movie, and not just make some money.
Perhaps that’s because the movie is about money, and about the foibles of people who desire it too much. Following a band of thieves going on a heist to steal a treasure hoard from a wealthy tyrant, the film is a tongue-in-cheek adaptation of the namesake tabletop fantasy role-playing game, incorporating various elements of D&D lore into its story but using newly developed characters and plots. While the movie requires no prior knowledge of the game, its breathless pacing demands focus, like something improvised by an enthusiastic child with a short attention span. Here are the heroes, asking reanimated skeletons for help finding a magical helmet; there they go, running from an overweight dragon; off they race through a labyrinth full of monsters. The movie’s two-plus hours, stuffed with shenanigans, go by quickly.
An exuberant script brings the story to life, combining the hyperactive plot with distinctive characters and a litany of one-liners and gags. At the center is the affable, if ineffectual, Edgin (Chris Pine, “Star Trek”), playing straight man and leader to a host of oddballs, like the deadpan barbarian Holga (Michelle Rodriguez, “The Fast and the Furious”), and their comrade-turned-nemesis, the roguish lowlife Forge (Hugh Grant, “Love Actually”). Much of the comedy comes from the idiosyncrasies of individual characters, like Holga’s humorless candor or Edgin’s foolhardy optimism, yet these same qualities also lead to unexpectedly tender moments. In one scene, Holga visits her ex-husband, a halfling (as in, a man half her size), only to discover that he has moved on and is living with another woman. All they can do is wish each other well, a sentiment that rings true even as Holga takes in the pain of his rejection, even as she towers over him.
With its charming, breezy story and its likable cast, with all its setpieces fitted neatly into place from the blustery opening shot to the final tag, “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” is a welcome surprise from an industry seemingly allergic to them. This is the rare reboot that demonstrates how to make old material feel new again, not by repetition and fan service, but by using a little imagination. I hope they never make a sequel.
Originally published in The Harvard Press on 4/7/23.