The reason that so many role-playing game groups quote Monty Python and the Holy Grail – too much so, a couple of my friends say – is because Holy Grail is to fantasy role-playing what This Is Spinal Tap is to rock musicians: At some point, you will see a scene where you think: “My group has done this.”
The joke is the contrast between the medieval fantasy romance of The Lord of the Rings, Excalibur or even Camelot versus the reality of what modern people actually do when they’re roleplaying in such a world. Well, the great thing about the new Dungeons & Dragons movie is that it acknowledges this right off the bat.
Unlike the earlier atrocity released under the D&D name, this production (Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, henceforth to be called Honor Among Thieves, or D&D HAT) actually has some coordination with both game fans and the Wizards of the Coast company that has run D&D for years. For instance, the fictional world is the Forgotten Realms, the dimension that D&D has been using for its default setting since before Wizards took over. When Chris Pine’s character is described as an ex-Harper, Realms fans know that the Harpers are a group unique to that setting, basically an organization of do-gooders whose charter members actually were bards and other musicians.
Elgin (Pine) is a bard who left the Harpers after their enemies, the Red Wizards of Thay, tried to assassinate him and ended up killing his wife with a magical poison. So he gets his best buddy, the barbarian Holga (Michelle Rodriguez), elder thief Forge (Hugh Grant) and bumbling comic relief sorcerer Snails Simon (Justice Smith) to go on a quest for a magical plot device that will bring his wife back. This goes awry, Simon and Forge escape, Elgin and Holga are captured, and once they escape prison, they try to get back with Forge – now the regent lord of the city of Neverwinter – only to be double-crossed again by Forge, whose court wizard turns out to be another Red Wizard of Thay.
This leads to another quest to get the plot device, now combined with a need to get back at Forge, and of course this quest turns into a side quest to get another item they need to finish the first quest, and it becomes kind of a heist scenario, as most D&D games kind of are. The difference being that both the heroes and villain are less lethal and more altruistic than most D&D teams in my experience.
The acting is at least passable, the special effects are decent and there’s a lot of action and tricks. Again, the morality is more on the level of a Hollywood movie than true Swords & Sorcery, let alone High Fantasy, and the largely unserious tone might turn off more serious D&D players and wargamers. But it also is serious about the background material, with many monsters and spells that players will recognize. It might be a Hollywood action movie, but it’s a GOOD Hollywood action movie.
Indeed, my sister Natalie took me to this movie because she wanted to see it, and she really liked it despite not knowing anything about D&D besides what I’ve told her secondhand. Our other sister had told her she was interested in seeing it, and I would say that’s the best endorsement: If you can come into this movie not knowing anything about D&D or the Forgotten Realms, and it’s still an entertaining movie on its own terms, then that’s a success.