Dungeons
& Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Cert: 12 A | ★★★★✩

Since its release in 1974 the tabletop fantasy role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons has been played by millions of people across the globe. It’s the market leader in the role-playing game industry, which has also had a huge impact on modern gaming as a whole.

Still, despite the game’s popularity, any attempts at translating it to the big screen have yielded very little. But now, thanks to the team behind such comedies as the hugely successful Horrible Bosses franchise and the hilariously funny Game Night, D&D is finally getting the adaptation it truly deserves.

Dungeons and Dragons (8)

Honor Among Thieves (Paramount Pictures)

The film follows recently widowed petty criminal Edgin (Chris Pine) as he embarks on an epic quest to retrieve a lost relic. Accompanied by a merry band of misfits, Edgin hopes to bring back his wife from the dead and be reunited with his daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman).
But first he must defeat a former friend turned foe.

Writing and directing duo John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein have capitalised on their brilliantly diverse cast to bring us one of the best and funniest game adaptations around.

Elevated by the ingenious casting of former heart-throb-turned-national treasure Hugh Grant as the villain du jour, Honor Among Thieves capitalises on the resurgence of ensemble-led adventures a la MCU to bring us a joyous, silly and at times genuinely thrilling saga to be enjoyed by the whole family.

With Easter eggs and nods to the game itself peppered throughout the story, Daley and Goldstein have delivered a film that refuses to take itself too seriously and perhaps that’s where their adaptation differs from its lacklustre predecessors.

Honor Among Thieves doesn’t simply borrow from recent successful film series such as Taika Waititi’s Thor, but it also manages to do so without alienating fans of both franchises.

And if there is undeniably more than a little hint of MCU spirit running through the story, that could easily be attributed to long-time Marvel producer Jeremy Latcham, who is part of the team also presiding over the proceedings here. It’s a winner.