It’s well established that Marvel has maxed out on its long reign as the go-to family favorite action series — the only good movies to come from the company in recent years are “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” “Shang-Chi” and maybe the upcoming Spider-Verse movie. Thankfully, “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” marks the beginning of new fantasy franchise potential, with almost infinite D&D lore to draw from.
Chris Pine (“Wonder Woman 1984”) is once again cast as the lovable douchebag who’s working on himself, this time as main character Edgin, a bard father to his daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman, “65”). After he and his partner-in-crime Holga (Michelle Rodriguez, “F9”) escape from prison for grand larceny, Edgin searches for conman Forge (Hugh Grant, “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”), whom he entrusted to keep Kira safe.
However, Forge is now the Lord of the city Neverwinter, who reigns alongside Red Wizard Sofina (Daisy Head, “Shadow and Bone”) and refuses to let Edgin and Holga have Kira back. So, Edgin and Holga assemble a team with sorcerer Simon (Justice Smith, “Sharper”) and druid Doric (Sophia Lillis, “Gretel & Hansel”), and, receiving help from paladin Xenk Yendar (Regé-Jean Page, “Bridgerton”) to take down Forge and Sofina, rescue Kira and retrieve the Tablet of Reawakening, a magical item which Edgin hopes will revive his late wife Zia (Georgia Landers, “The Girl Before”).
“Honor Among Thieves” is as much comedy as it is action. Edgin’s stupidity and authenticity add to his charm, and although not all of his dad jokes about the impossibility of their mission are funny, most of the jokes stick a wobbly landing. The balance of personalities and capabilities in this unlikely friend group is essential to the humor’s success — Simon always calls Edgin out on his bullshit, Holga’s roughness contrasts with Xenk’s lack of ability to understand sarcasm and Doric’s rightful skepticism of the group’s plans to infiltrate a well-guarded castle represents exactly what the audience is thinking.
Even though I have only played exactly half of a D&D campaign before, elements of D&D worlds create stronger characters and action scenes. Sofina’s power as a Red Wizard is more compelling than even that of Thanos, even though the audience gets too few scenes with Sofina for her to be a perfect, prototypical villain. Thanos’s Infinity Stones with lackluster names and supposedly infinite power can’t compete with Sofina’s mission to recreate the Beckoning Death, historic villain Szass Tam’s plot to turn people into his zombie-like minions. Doric has the coolest abilities as a druid, shapeshifting into whatever she needs to be, which beats out every other fantasy creature. The helmet of disjunction, which allows the wearer to break through all nearby spells, and the hither-thither staff, which allows the user to teleport to any other place in their field of vision, are magical artifacts that benefit from the same imaginativeness present in D&D lore.
Any good fantasy series features the most infuriating main character who is relatable because they have weaker abilities than all of their sidekick friends but an ability to spearhead the whole adventure, driven by their sad backstory. While Edgin is on the more likable side of the infuriating, weak main character scale, screenwriter-director duo Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (“Game Night”) miss many opportunities to bring life to the rest of the band of thieves.
Everyone except Edgin is introduced in relation to their motivation to take Forge down, and they are lacking in complete character arcs that fit well with a complete backstory. Doric, who joined because her family was wiped out by Forge’s troops, never returns to see them, nor is there any elaboration on why Forge was after them in the first place. Holga is, in part, trying to get over her divorce with ex-husband Marlamin (Bradley Cooper, “Nightmare Alley”), whom she meets up with while on the way to Forge’s castle. We don’t see a proper ending to her love life, nor do we really know what emotions she experiences besides her typical barbarian qualities of using brute force rather than words to solve problems.
Still, don’t be put off by my criticism. This film is the most fun I’ve had in a while. The group of thieves as a whole was easy to root for, which made it easy to look past the one-dimensionality of some characters. Sofina is probably one of my favorite villains in a long time. That is enough reason to watch it.
Alignment charts in D&D are categories used to figure out what action a character might take next, ranging from lawful to chaotic and from good to evil. The characters in “Honor Among Thieves” fit into these boxes somewhat clearly because they all make decisions according to their own moral compass, which is mostly consistent throughout the movie. Even though there are already (official) alignment chart placements for these thieves as NPCs, I decided to make my own.
| Lawful good | Neutral good | Chaotic good |
| Zia | Doric | Simon |
| Obligatory “deceased loved one of the main character who we only ever see in flashbacks in a positive light” placement. | The only sorcerer who can simultaneously wield fresh-cut grass smell and carry the team on his back in one go. | The only sorcerer who can simultaneously wield fresh-cut grass smell and carry the team on his back in one go. |
| Lawful neutral | True neutral | Chaotic neutral |
| Xenk Yendar | Kira | Edgin and Holga |
| His character in this movie is like a prince that got placed in the wrong universe. He’s also the most hardcore of them all, and it’s not even close. | Every time we see her, it’s in relation to Edgin. We won’t know which way she leans until she’s put into high pressure situations. Generally wholesome. | They escape imprisonment by riding a giant aarakocra out of a window and put their teammates in danger, but they make up for it by chucking potatoes at enemies to protect those they love. |
| Lawful evil | Neutral evil | Chaotic evil |
| Forge | Sofina | Szass Tam |
| Standard fare corrupt politician. “Lawful” has a loose definition here, he’s comparatively more lawful than Sofina. | She’s a Szass Tam wannabe, but that final fight was lame on her part. If she had more lines, she would be the ideal villain. | He really thought “what if everyone became a zombie lol” and then made it happen. Pretty wild if you ask me. |
Daily Arts Writer Kristen Su can be reached at krsu@umich.edu.