Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

I didn't really expect to like this, so it was an even more pleasant surprise. The plot formula is clichéd, but it’s dressed up with a lot of imaginative and likably playful details, including dialogue devices showing that the movie’s creators are more clever than is usually the case with such farces. This will turn out to be a successful franchise if it keeps the quality at this level. (06/23/2023)

Excellent stuff! The jokes, the visual effects, the twists, everything works to perfection. The smart script and the pinpoint direction of John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein are supported by great performances. The perfect chemistry of the protagonists, comparable to Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, pulls the whole film forward. Chris Pine is great, he truly enjoys his role as a Harper, and in the strongly dramatic sequences he doesn’t leave a single eye dry. Michelle Rodriguez as the female version Conan the Barbarian is having an incredible career comeback. The heists, the exploration, the rescues and the fights are executed with incredible wit and inventiveness. Balfe's music is top-notch. This is something you can count with almost any time, and I am already looking forward to watching it again. (04/01/2023)

I've never played D&D, and the movie adaptations from 2000 and 2012 passed me by (fortinately?), so I approached Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves with a clean slate and as a complete ignoramus. I commend the film for not focusing only on the action-fantasy level, but also for giving enough space to the likeable characters, of which I would single out the snarky bard Edgin and his cruel but sharp friend Holga. The character of Simon was quite unbearable: firstly, I found him annoyingly clumsy and secondly, it's really hard to like the actor. The film could definitely have been a quarter of an hour shorter, but I still enjoyed the screening in the cinema immensely, whether thanks to the aforementioned characters, the regularly dosed action, the demonic Sophina, or more than one humorous scene – the graveyard confrontation with the dead and the with the "chubby" dragon were the most amusing. I believe that if I were a player or fan of the game I would give it full marks, but as a non-player I can honestly say that I would definitely not be averse to a sequel in the future if the quality remains at a similar level. (03/26/2023)

Fantasy with a heart. Here you can clearly see that this is not part of the mass production line of Disney executives, with bored filmmakers counting the days until the end of the shooting; you can see the love that was put into it. Where there's supposed to be a situational joke, it's there at the right time and it cheers you up, where there's supposed to be a bit of a song, it's there and it warms you up. It's chock full of ideas you've always wanted to see on the silver screen, but filmmakers never had the imagination to materialize them. Simply put, an awesome feel-good thing that hasn't been done here ... well, maybe since Matthew Vaughn's Stardust. And Chris Pine, the older and grayer he gets, the more charismatic he becomes, I wish he was in a really big movie. I can even imagine him as the new Bond. (05/19/2023)

It rarely happens that a movie from which I don't expect much pleasantly surprises me to the point of being thrilled. This time, the Americans nailed it and created a genuinely high-quality fantasy, which I love encountering in gaming worlds. The story was well constructed, the acting performances were not wasted, the dialogue had a nice touch of humor, and the action scenes didn't offend me with how they were handled (nor did they lack humor). Hugh Grant's role as the almost arch-villain fit him very well. I missed some blood and unanchored parts of human anatomy here because they are inseparable from the genre. This way, it was almost like a fairytale. A professionally done fairytale. Finally, I know how it would turn out if an owl had sex with a bear after a wild forest party. If you're not a fantasy fan, this may not be the movie for you, but I enjoyed it, and I feel obliged to give it five stars. / "You're getting better. You didn't fly as far." / Lesson learned: Never interfere between a warrior and her potato. (07/01/2023)