Editor's note: The below contains spoilers for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.Whenever stories are adapted from their original medium to the silver screen, it's a tall order that carries plenty of expectations. Book fans will forever debate whether the novel is better than the movie and, likewise, film connoisseurs might fervently disagree. So what happens when you adapt a tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) into an action-comedy movie? Each player that has participated in the game has their own unique, eclectic, and vibrant collection of personal memories from games played at home, so how well can a film capture that magic? That's the question Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves ends up answering, with resounding success.
One of the greatest strengths of the film is its ability to portray the hilarity and hijinks that happen in real Dungeons & Dragons games while continuing to tell an exciting fantasy heist adventure from start to finish. Avid fans, including myself, will be thrilled to see that directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley brought the chaotic camaraderie and frenetic energy of a real-life DnD game into a big-screen adventure overflowing with wit and wonder.
It's Full of Countless Shenanigans
Though Dungeons & Dragons is often set in high fantasy environments with history books of intricate lore and depth, the game is ultimately just that: a game. Most people's connection to DnD is through a home game played with friends and family. This means that there's a real person acting as the Dungeon Master (DM) who builds the world that players participate in, placing challenges and obstacles in their way. The protagonists of the game are the players, who are real people that write characters that they want to play, bringing to life their own fantastic desires and wishes. Why is it so important to emphasize the roles people take on as they're playing around the table? Because that's what makes DnD so immersive; it's not just the dragons and dungeons, it's the friendship and collaborative storytelling with friends that makes it so addicting. The immediate follow-up thought is this: what happens when you and your friends all hang out to play a game? Most of the time, you'll get several hours of jokes, laughter, teasing, and an overabundance of shenanigans and hijinks. That freedom and enjoyment is the key ingredient to Dungeons & Dragons and is a concept that this film absolutely runs with.
The characters in the film are allowed to be goofy and fallible, some of the key components of what player characters are often like. Since a person playing the game doesn't write out the script of their narrative, they must improvise and adapt. Oftentimes, it ends up being hilarious and unexpected. Chris Pine leads the rest of the cast as Edgin the bard on an adventure that is just as chaotic and funny as anything a group of friends can come up with while teasing each other. Within the opening minutes of the movie, his character background is introduced, and we immediately see him in action. When players first come together to play, they have to share their character's origin stories in brief and straightforward summaries, something that is exhibited in the cold open introductions for each character. They're not overly complex, but that's part of what makes them feel realistic.
When Edgin and his barbarian friend Holga (Michelle Rodriguez) are on a committee hearing seeking to be released from prison, the DnD shenanigans are already primed and ready to go. Edgin pushes an aarakocra, a humanoid bird, out of a window in order to escape prison during the world's equivalent of a parole hearing. It's silly, unrealistic, and ultimately pointless because the committee was just about to release him anyway. That's the type of comedic gold and irony that is ever present in DnD games, and its consistent presence helps establish the world as one that is not overly serious for the sake of being high fantasy.
Throughout the film, Edgin and his party are constantly devising new plans to achieve their objective; some are more absurd and unrealistic than others. Anyone who's played DnD knows just how many plans they have to scrap for being too unrealistic, but they also know that some of the craziest endeavors end up being the most successful. As they discuss their plans and speak with each other, they are all able to be goofy and casual in ways that feel authentic to a DnD table. They are not weighed down by the limitations of a high fantasy setting, the characters don't have to speak in a Shakespearean manner and are able to feel like real people.
Don't Worry, It's Also Game Accurate
In addition to the joviality that comes with real-life DnD, it's also important to remember that there are nitty-gritty details of the game that make the TTRPG really tick. It's through the combination of collaborative storytelling and numerical game mechanics that DnD is able to give an immersive experience that still feels natural and challenging. For the more acute DnD player, there are plenty of Easter eggs and story beats that feel pulled straight out of the Player's Handbook. Each of the character classes is notably accurate to their game counterparts. They are able to do the signature abilities that define each class, such as Edgin's inspiring words and Doric's Wild Shape into countless animals, so players familiar with those classes are able to feel part of the action at an unprecedentedly immersive level. Seeing a paladin use their Divine Smite to strike down undead wizards is already exciting enough, but if you have roleplayed that same action in your home game, it feels exponentially more engaging. In the game, spellcasting can require any number of three components: verbal (spoken), somatic (gesture or motion), and material (actual physical substances needed to cast the spell). Justice Smith, in his role as Simon the sorcerer, is able to execute this detail with every spell he casts, as he incorporated gestures from the sign language translation of his spells into his character's movements and execution of magic.
The lore is also accurate to the setting of the Forgotten Realms. Players familiar with Faerûn will be excited to see settings and creatures accurate to the locations they explore in the game. The majority of the film takes place on the Sword Coast, one of the most recognizable areas in Dungeons & Dragons lore. Edgin was a former member of the Harpers, an organization that has a deep history in the realm. When they recruit the druid Doric (Sophia Lillis), she is acting on behalf of the Emerald Enclave, another group that has existed in the Forgotten Realms lore for years. The film doesn't just drop in these references as throwaway Easter eggs, giving them the credit they actually deserve. These are instances of masterful world-building, bringing a beloved and recognizable world to life
Even the Silly Little Moments Feel Real
The overall effectiveness of the film in its portrayal of DnD chaos is because of its attention to the finer details. Paladins are sworn to a god and must uphold strict tenets, so often times they end up being rule sticklers. Xenk (Regé-Jean Page) is this to a tee, matching Edgin's snark and sarcasm with platitudes and wisdom.
In fact, even the small missteps and stumbles feel like they're a part of the game experience. Because of the random odds on a die, there's always the chance for random and surprising failures at any possible moment in a game. Silly little failures and silly big failures are all part of the randomness that comes with DnD, so seeing characters fail at seemingly pointless moments only adds to the authenticity of the film.
In any other action film, getting discovered while sneaking around might seem like a stupid oversight and lazy writing. In Dungeons & Dragons, both the game and the movie, it feels like sometimes you just have god-awful luck. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves brings all the humor and goofiness that happens in a real DnD game and blows it up on the big screen, making the most enjoyable film experience for fans who are yearning to see their game in all its glory.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is currently playing in theaters.