Rebooting the sword & sorcery series with Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez
A former member of the Harpers turned thief (Pine) amasses a group of unique individuals in order to acquire a magic relic, The Helm of Disjunction, and get his daughter back from a conman Lord (Hugh Grant) and his Red Wizard accomplice (Daisy Head). The adventurers include a barbarian (Rodriguez), an amateur sorcerer (Justice Smith), a shape-changing tiefling (Sophia Lillis) and a noble paladin (Regé-Jean Page).
"Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” (2023) reboots the trilogy that ran from 2000-2012. It’s easily the best film on a technical level but, story-wise, I prefer the previous two, “Wrath of the Dragon God” (2005) and “The Book of Vile Darkness” (2012), which are more serious.
Like the first one from 2000, it telegraphs from the get-go that it's not to be taken too seriously. If you can roll with the campy air, it’s an amusing throwaway fantasy flick. Imagine the gaudiness of "Star Wars" (1977) if the story were transplanted to a Medieval-like kingdom where dragons & magic are reality and you'd have a good idea of what this movie has to offer.
So, it’s a fun, entertaining adventure-fantasy with a good cast and the highlight of petite Sophia Lillis as the elf-like tiefling, but it’s overlong and needed more depth. Plus, there are too many glaring borrowings from other movies, like the frozen-land prison from “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country,” the bald witch-sorceress from “Conan the Barbarian” (2011), Magneto’s helmet from the “X-Men” flicks, bits from the “Thor” and “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies, etc.
The film runs 2 hours, 14 minutes, and was shot in Iceland and Northern Ireland.
GRADE: B-/C+