Thursday, April 6, 2023

I saw Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves


On Sunday night my wife, son, his wife, two of my daughters, and I went and saw the new DnD movie and I thought it was a really fun movie. Everyone liked it (though my 9 year old daughter got a little bored) and my son, 21, said the flow of the story taught him ways to bring a party together and inspired him to run another game after a hiatus of about two years. I'm not sure you can get a much better review of a film based on an RPG than it "made me want to run DnD again".

Full disclosure: I found all of the recent trailers I'd seen very appealing and I went into the film with the hope that we could get at least a good movie and I wasn't let down. I think we got a good film and a fun action-adventure and the creators of the film understood enough about DnD and RPGs to give us some nice easter eggs. The DnD movie exceed my expectations and I'd like to see it a second time so I can look for more of those hidden gems.

I'm not usually a big Chris Pine fan but I found this to be his most compelling performance and I think he delivered a man with little left to lose but who cares about people and doing the right thing even when he messes up. 

I will say that I did guess that a certain situation would play out at the end of the film based on the McGuffin (not a hard leap at all) but was surprised who it happened too.

I like all of the actors and would have liked to get to know more about Dorric, though I understand there is a prequel novel featuring her and I might actually pick that up.

One thing that has surprised me this week is how few of my customers have seen the film. I've recommended it to all of them and maybe it will have some legs at the box office. I wouldn't mind seeing more of these characters and I think it is an easy way to expose non-players to the game. 

I couldn't really ask for a better DnD movie and I highly recommend seeing it to anyone. Its a good ambassador for the game and a fun time for a family and friends.



2 comments:

emarsk said...

Here are some excerpts from a post of yours, in January:

"I'm tired of Wizards of the Coast. I'm tired of Hasbro."

"You guys are the poster child for "greed is good". We weren't afraid, we were pissed off because we SEE you."

"The "game" doesn't matter to you. You see it as a "lifestyle brand" now. You want to sell lunch boxes, underwear, toothbrushes...the game is barely on your radar. The only "risk" is you."

"We beat you but it's hollow because you showed us how much you despise everyone of us. You despise your customers, fans, and even your staff."

"You are fucking liars."

"The damage is done. We are moving on and good riddance to you. We will never trust you again."

---

I see you're already back to happily throwing your money at these "fucking liars" that you "will never trust again", and encouraging others to do the same.

Running Nomad said...

I absolutely loved the movie. I went into it with tempered low expectations. Blown away with how great of a movie it is, as just a movie. Which is what I was hoping for, that the foundational principles of good story telling and compelling characters which is the core to dnd, directly translates to good movies. The writing was so tightly done that everything had a call back once or twice. No phrase or scene was filler. It was an excellent fun action adventure movie that just happened to have a skin of dnd faerun. No prior knowledge was a perquisite to the plot, characters, humor, or enjoyment.

And now after hearing about the person who accidentally listened to it at home with Audio Description turned on, mistaking it fir intentional DM narration, I'm looking forward to additional watches.

Good dnd is fun dnd.

And that movie was just good fun entertainment.

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