If there’s one movie that’s perfectly encapsulated the essence of understanding the assignment this year, it’s without a doubt Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. From the camerawork, to the tonal overtones and undertones, to the inch-perfect performances across the board, directing duo Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley didn’t just succeed in adapting the popular tabletop role-playing game; they succeeded in adapting a night of you and your friends sitting around a table in your pajamas, screaming at poor dice rolls as you get mauled by another owlbear and stumble upon exciting new magical items.
Indeed, like protagonist Edgin Darvis with his lute, the film struck all the right chords; a 91% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes is entirely indicative of the movie’s creative accomplishments, and you simply can’t help but wonder what may be in store franchise-wise.
Currently, though, more and more fans are piling on to the Honor Among Thieves train now that the film has been basking in its digital and physical release for a few months, so reappraisal is what’s currently on the cards for r/DnD.
At least, it will be once Jarnathan shows up.
It’s been a long time coming for the intersection of Dungeons & Dragons fans and moviegoers, considering the woeful attempts that cursed so many screens back in the early 2000s.
But, most importantly, Honor Among Thieves understood what it was and never tried to be anything other than that, which is the greatest thing anyone, let alone just a movie, can be.
Again, it’s hard to say what lies ahead for this colorful new world — a question that will receive at least part of an answer with a television spin-off from Paramount Plus currently in the works — but perhaps that’s also just our franchise continuity instinct kicking in. What we know for sure is that Honor Among Thieves is an absolute boon for standalone genre fiction stories at the moment, and it deserves many a tip of the hat for that.