Mary: I am absolutely thrilled to have Gabriella here to discuss Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves! Hopefully, this will be much more enjoyable to talk about than Riverdale was lol
I’ll preface by saying – as anyone who has met me for ten minutes knows – I’ve been an avid D&D player for about a decade or so. In that time, I’ve played a ton of characters of all classes and run a few campaigns. It’s just a really great hobby that builds community, IMO. All that to say, I came to this movie very familiar with the core structure of a D&D campaign, and pretty easily picked out which characters represented what classes and such. Gabriella, what’s your previous experience with D&D like? We already know you are a seasoned movie critic!
Gabriella As a pop culture nerd, I had of course heard of Dungeons and Dragons, but never played it, or even laid eyes on the board (there is a board, right?). I'd say that my knowledge is mostly what I've absorbed through the pop culture zeitgeist (from Freaks and Geeks to, of course, Stranger Things, but also just being permanently online in my early teenage years!) so I vaguely know the terms, like campaign, but wouldn't be able to tell you a single class.
What l brought with me to the viewing experience was a huge love of fantasy films - particularly Lord of the Rings. And of course the wealth of films I have to watch for work. Obviously, I came to Honor Among Thieves with an eye for what to write about, which I'll get to later, but also I wanted to have fun at the movies. Spoiler alert, l did!
Mary: I definitely had fun, too! In fact, my actual D&D group went to go see the movie together instead of playing one week! I think several other groups in our theater were doing that too. I appreciated that you didn’t need to know about classes and things like that to enjoy the movie. Really, just a tiny bit of knowledge about fantasy conventions would do!
That said, it was hard for me to turn my brain off – especially since we were with our D&D group. One of the things that immediately struck me as odd was the overabundant use of magic. Sure, it makes sense for Simon to have sporadic use of his powers, but like… Red Wizard or not, you just can’t have that many 9th-level spells! That said, it didn’t really bug me to have some of these “rules” of the game broken on screen. Frankly, I think we should break the rules more often in our home games, too!
Okay, but did he reorganize his spell slots and do some Sorcerer math?
Gabriella: It's so interesting that you mention that! It never even crossed my mind. If anything, I assumed that they were withholding the amount of "high level" spells and justifying it by saying he's bad at magic.
The thing that annoyed me was why on Earth Sophia Lillis’ character had that bizarre and mildly pathetic slingshot on her wrist? Is that a D&D thing? She can literally shapeshift into a dragon that spits fire or something, and yet she has to have a dinky little slingshot?
Anyway, besides that the amount of spells didn’t bother me or stand out to me.
Mary: Oh goodness! No, that was purely a design choice. She played a Druid, which can wildshape, or transform, into a variety of different animals, but like… she could’ve had a bow! There was no need for the little slingshot. Also – and I hate to be that person – she absolutely should not have been able to turn into a dragon.
I’m not sure if it was just me being hopeful, but didn’t there seem to be a lot of practical effects? Sure, there was CGI, too, but some of the creatures seemed like puppets, which is exciting for a movie in 2023. Puppets and other practical effects just age so well. Like, Yoda still looks good even decades later.
Gabriella: I mean, that gif of Baby Yoda aka Grogu just being thrown through the air… it’s so silly, but it’s so great!
But yes, I was pleasantly surprised. There were a couple of scenes that felt very much ‘shot on a green screen,’ but when I attended their San Diego Comic Con panel in 2022, the cast did talk a lot about filming on location.
In particular, Michelle Rodriguez said: "After years and years of making these types of movies and technology growing the way that it does, shooting on a green screen with golf balls, sucks balls. So having some real cool animatronics on set is really helpful.
"It just makes you really feel like you're part of what's going on. And you get to see the artists and do their thing. It's beautiful. Really cool." (via Digital Spy, my former employer!)
You can’t say Jarnathan doesn’t look great.
Mary: Absolutely– I want to say Jarnathan was part animatronic/costume, and that effect is just very cool. Great point from Rodriguez about the acting side of it, too. It has to be disorienting to be acting to golf balls.
Gabriella: I think overall, the thing that D&D did was not take itself too seriously. But at the same time, to my mind, it really took elements of the game and let it inspire the way the movie was filmed — I’m thinking in particular that giant fire hand thing! The action could be silly and over the top but still grounded in what felt like the ‘real’ D&D universe.
Also, it was nice to have a break from guns. I love an interestingly choreographed gunfight but every time I see one I can’t help but feel another bit of my soul die! We have such a gun problem in America (I say we because I’m American, but thank god I live in the UK) and while I 100% don’t believe that movies are responsible for that issue (our pathetic kowtowing to the NRA government is!) the two things become emotionally and viscerally linked for me as a viewer.
As a critic I can separate those two things - my feelings and the actual impact of movies - but for for this post, I feel like I can say that it was a relief to not have to deal with gunshots.
Mary: I feel the same way. Guns are such a real part of the world, and a real problem, so I sort of never want to see a war movie again. If I’m watching movies for escapism, I don’t want it to be so intense and violent. To be honest, that’s also what I like about D&D itself.
Gabriella: See I love a war film. Bring on Oppenheimer!
Mary: A little tangent, but in the game’s original lore there’s some pretty intense racism. Wizards of the Coast (the company who makes D&D now) has done a lot of work to rectify any prejudice in the game, but some players hold onto it pretty hard. I frequently say, there’s enough racism in real life. I don’t need fantasy racism, too!
Gabriella: It was nice also that there wasn’t a shoehorning of romance down anyone’s throat. There was the cute budding relationship between Justice Smith and Sophia Lillis’ characters, but beyond that we were just on an adventure and that was fine.
Mary: Yes! There was romance there, but it was just a cute light one. I’ll admit that as a player of the game, I LOVE a good in-game romance, but it’s often like this, just something happening in the background. I also really appreciated that the romance grew out of genuine character development. Simon grew as a sorcerer, and that gave him the confidence that made him so attractive to his crush. It was nice!
We didn’t talk about it, but ya Bridgerton boy is here and he’s hot.
Gabriella: Last but not least, it was nice to have a self continued movie! No obvious sequel set ups! No blatant cliffhangers! No …entire movie being a set up for another movie! It ended, and I simply loved that.
Mary: Ugh, yes! This is something that bothers me about a lot of books, too. It’s tiring to know there’s something else coming or that the first installment is just prologue for something later. There’s plenty of room for another movie if this one is successful enough (and I think it is!), but because of the nature of the franchise, it doesn’t have to be about the same characters, really. This is a nice little one shot story, and it’s perfect to capture the feeling of playing for an afternoon with your friends. The next adventure could be something totally different, and that’s what makes it so fun!
Gabriella: Agreed.
