#i'm definitely not satisfied with my edgin

[disterras-sims]

gave it a try! 🎲

[crystal-lillies]

Okay okay okay first thoughts on the Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves movie, with my best effort to avoid spoilers this time.

I had a blast watching it. I loved seeing the practical costumes and makeup for the creatures and I loved seeing the different ways spells were interpreted. And I did tear up a few times! Nearly full cried, but definitely got emotional on several points which is almost always a good sign for me.

I did not expect how the story played out the way it did. It was marketed definitely as a GOTG-style movie but Fantasy(tm) which both is and isn't what we got.

The whole thing felt like a campaign, or maybe the first arc of a campaign, but squeezed into a 2 hour and 15 minute movie. That being, it felt like a fast pace mostly because they sped-run the traveling bits with some gorgeous montage shots. Mostly fine by me, but at some points, it definitely felt like the scale of the world and time was off. It's by no means unique to this movie, and definitely not unique to the movies this film is emulating in spirit.

It's got somewhat of an Indiana Jones/Goonies/The Mummy/even OG trilogy Star Wars vibe in that certain logics are hand waved in order to get to the good stuff (tm), but it isn't unforgivable nor a detriment to the enjoyment of the film.

The characters are all very enjoyable, each in their own ways. I wish we spent just a bit more time on each of them, but there's the rub with ensemble films. And truth be told, to no one's surprise, Chris Pine's character Edgin gets the most prominent focus. I was surprised, however, at the focus Hugh Grant's character Forge had, especially compared to Rege Jean Page's Xenk.

Forge is a very charismatic antagonist, who has a lot more to do in the story than I anticipated, and definitely is a delight to watch onscreen. Hugh Grant dips a bit hammy into his performance but it's in a fun way that reminds of a Saturday morning cartoon. Smarmy, not entirely serious, but occasionally shows a hint of the person beneath, good and bad.

I found myself a little disappointed that Xenk got a really interesting focus, with an emotional and engaging background, and then seemed to not get a satisfying conclusion to that focus. He felt like a guest player character, rather than a full time player character, like the others in the group. While it does still tie up in a self-contained story, I'm hoping this movie does well enough to maybe explore into his journeys beyond this one. They did say that he is the Archetypal Hero that doesn't really fit with the rest of the group, so I suppose that was their way of saying he isn't permanent, which is fair. And while watching I definitely felt it, and wondered how he would be past his point and if he would have dragged the story in a different direction than it needed. (Or maybe if he was too much of a higher level than they were to justify keeping him around.) But that still didn't keep me from wanting to see more of his character later down the line.

Justice Smith's Simon has a nice self-esteem arc, and I enjoyed watching his growth through the movie. He also has an interesting backstory that sort of gets played with, but has plenty more room to grow, and I also want to see more of him and his character.

Sophia Lillis' Doric is a lot of fun and strikes me as a Circle of the Moon druid. She gets a small, engaging focus of her own, but in keeping with the pacing and the ensemble directed at Edgin, I find myself wanting more of her as well.

Doric and Simon are paired up, sort of, and I'm not entirely sure if it works since they don't get too much time, but such is the curse of a fast-paced ensemble film. Hell, Casino Royale was barely an ensemble film, if you count the sidekicks and villains, and Bond got a life-and-sequel-movie-altering romance that was built through the whole thing and I didn't feel like the relationship had enough there by the time she was killed at the end of it, so mileage may vary I suppose.

Michelle Rodriguez's character Holga was also a delight to watch. She's not the lowest of Intelligence but she for sure rolled a nat20 on heart. (Yes I'm keeping that.) It may be since I've been watching a lot of the Mighty Nein campaign, but she reminds me a lot of Yasha. And given that this movie was filmed during the pandemic, and the people behind it are huge nerds themselves, it may be very likely they were in part inspired by Yasha when writing Holga. Who could say?

But Holga holds up the party with Chris' Edgin, and they have a great dynamic with each other. Edgin is the bard, and while he doesn't have his own colorful Bigby's Hand, he certainly and deftly weaves the story as his class is wont to do. And I worry for his lute because he swings it around like it's a sword sometimes and every time I think it's going to break.

The writing is fairly tight, fast pacing aside, and there are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments and heartfelt moments. I want to see deleted scenes for this movie because I just want more of this story and these characters. And I feel like some things may have been trimmed that might have bloated a scene or two, but also would have been good to see. Hard to say at this point, but that's the vibe I get.

Overall, this movie is so much fun and worth going to see in theaters, more than once if you can. There is so much love in this story and it is absolutely felt when watching. You can definitely have fun with it if you have no experience with Dungeons and Dragons, if you're only familiar with separate properties like Critical Role or Dimension 20 and not so much the Classic Stuff(tm), or if you're a hardcore fan. There's good content in here for everyone, and it's treated well, and it treats its audience well.

If I were to give it a score as a movie, I would err on the side of 8.5/10. It's far from perfect, but it's a hell of a lot of fun and really well put together. Seeing it with friends/family in an engaged theater I would bump it up to a 9 or a 9.5.

I will be seeing it again, so I am going to reserve any Spoiler/Context-Specific Thoughts for after that time comes, and I will be interested to see how my experience with the movie changes depending on the theater and who I see it with, as I went alone this first time. But I'm very glad I saw it and look forward to seeing it again, and I hope they do get more opportunities to tell more stories in this world and other of the D&D worlds.

Both this cast, and John Francis Daley and Johnathan Goldstein as writer/directors, and all the people who worked on this movie, hit one out of the park and I would be very excited to see what more they could bring.

[purplekoop]

Koop Talks About (#1)... Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves A 9th-Level Pleasant Surprise!

So the first of the movies I watched with my dearest partner during our thanksgiving meetup trip was the D&D movie, which... I'll be blunt, I didn't really expect much from. As much joy as I've had with DnD over the past few years, I don't really give much credit to DnD itself as a "brand". My memories come from the primarily homebrewed campaigns and thoroughly original PCs, saturated with house rules and whatever the hell I convinced my partner would fit in a DnD game. I even started a campaign of my own with an original setting, though it sadly didn't last long due to personal motivation. But all these memories I associate more with each game as separate entities from the nebulous basic concept of DnD, so an original story relying entirely on established official DnD monsters, locations, and characters didn't have much innate appeal to me.

Fortunately, Honor Among Thieves doesn't rely on pure DnD iconography and fanservice to be a solid film. It instead is a solid film on its own right, a fun and satisfying fantasy film that uses the props of established DnD material to tell a good story just as any Dungeon Master would. I have next to no complaints with it as just a movie, and the context of it serving as a big screen adaptation of a plausible DnD adventure smooth any gaps in its score for me. (Not that I'm scoring these things, don't expect THAT much from me.)

So let's start the in-depth topics where any DnD game does: the cast of characters.

What'd be of concern in a true DnD game but is more excusable in the context of a mainstream motion picture is the fact the movie has a clear main character: the questionably named Edgin, played by one of the Hollywood Chrises of all time, Pine. Pathetic as an alleged Bard (doesn't cast a SINGLE bard spell, he just sings a couple times, coward), Edgin is the cornerstone of the story, serving as the focal driving force of the plot and the (eventually assembled) party. We meet him and his longtime adventuring cohort, the barbarian Holga (played by Michelle Rodriguez), at the very start of the film, and follow their story throughout, from dramatic backstory retelling to the end. It's Edgin's story, which feels a bit skewed in focus for a DnD context, but I understand and agree with giving the story a definitive focal character for the sake of being a simple and cohesive film. It helps that his story is effective, with his character being charming yet flawed in a way that I thankfully think adds up to being likeable. Fortunate also that the overwhelming majority of this movie's "MCU dialogue" is confined to him, which I was personally unbothered by here. It contrasts a bit with most of the cast speaking in believable enough fantasy speak, but it fits for his sort of "scheming quick-witted bastard" persona, plus I guess also makes him a grounding point for an unfamiliar broader audience to attach to. The more modern speaking patterns are generally contained to the main cast of the four "player characters", so again, it's fair enough they don't keep the act quite as well as the "NPCs". I can see it be a bit grating to some, but personally I thought it was fine.

Oh yeah, I glossed over Holga. As great as she is, there's not much to say on her. Barbarians are usually pretty simple but great, lady barbarians are even better. She's not too "whimsical" of a barbarian, she doesn't say "I would like to rage" verbatim, much less do anything that looks like an active "rage state", but frankly it doesn't bother me too much. She's not too complicated, but she has some great moments, and has a subtle but solid performance.

Third of the four is Simon the sorcerer, played by Justice Smith of Detective Pikachu fame and also probably other things. He's the character with the second most "MCU dialogue", but his weird semi-accent he plays the character with hides it a little better. He's also the only one of the party's three casting classes to actively cast spells, but like. It'd be annoying to conveniently explain to a general audience what makes this magic different from this magic and this magic, so I get minimizing who actually gets to do casting. You could argue even that DnD has the problem of relying on casting as a mechanic a bit too much, but hey that's a different opinion ramble. Anyways Simon. He's fun too. He has the second most prominent story arc of the party, which while simple is still satisfying to see to its fruition. It's also fun to see an adaptation of wild magic specifically, which I do wish was extrapolated on further but again, I get keeping it simple.

Last up is Doric, the tiefling druid played by Sophia Lillis. Unfortunately she's also the least up, at least in screentime. She joins the story a significant portion after the rest of the main party, and while around for most of the ride she still feels a bit disconnected from the plot. After being shakily convinced to aid in the quest, she does get a really fun action scene to show off her wild shape abilities. While very much bending the technical rules backwards for most of her scenes with the ability (in some cases even impacting the official game, I believe the rules on what you can turn into were altered for the next major edition specifically to allow for turning into an owlbear like in the movie), I'm willing to ignore that for how fun they get with the gimmick. Again, slightly weird how her druid magic is limited to just wild shape, but again, it's fine, we're keeping it simple and approachable, I get it. I also get the choice to not give her the more conventional bright chromatic skin tone most players associate with tieflings. With the horror stories for how full-body painted live action characters have been on the actors (Drax being a notably egregious-sounding example), I don't blame them for keeping the demonic details restrained. The tail is cute at least, got that much. Her performance is also a bit low-impact, but she has her moments in the group dynamic, even if somewhat sparse.

The side characters meanwhile I have no complaints for. The hyper-competent temporary paladin party member Xenk (played by the eye-pleasing Regé-Jean Page) was a delight, both in the incidental comedy he brought and also the genuine sincerity he grounds the plot with.

The antagonists meanwhile are minor spoilers (though fairly obvious and short-term) so skip this next paragraph if you want to dodge those:

The glorious scheming bastard Forge Fitzwilliam (played by Hugh Grant, the glorious voice of the Pirate Captain from Pirates: Band of Misfits/In an Adventure with Scientists and nothing else possibly as important) is an absolute delight of a scheming love-to-hate villain, whose lack in actual threat besides financial power is made up for by the less entertaining but thoroughly menacing Red Wizard, Sofina (played by Daisy Head). They balance each other out nicely, and I feel like the movie's lineup of antagonists is both enjoyable and functional as a result.

Moving away from the characters themselves to how they're presented, the effects in this movies are faaaaaanTASTIC. The highest praises I heard sang for this movie in advance were towards its use of animatronics, suits, and other practical effects to depict some of the forgotten realms' more fantastical yet mundane inhabitants. About every other scene features a dragonborn, tabaxi, or aarakocra, which is brought to life with real, physical, classic effects. It adds such an element of richness to the world and makes the film feel so much more sincere. The more typical modern big-budget CGI effects are of course here in spades as well, but their presence feels earned and reserved for just the effects that like... yeah no, you're not doing that with modern physical technology. Helps that these effects also look good, which, yeah, they do. There's an effect or two for a gag that feels a little "modern" or otherwise out of place, but these are pretty sparse and still entertaining enough to pass as a suspension-bending bit that any DM with a sense of humor would allow.

I think that brings me to the last big thing that I think I need to give credit to this movie for: it works great as a movie, but it also feels right as a DnD movie. It's a well-told fantasy story that sets up and pays off a solid story with a solid cast in a beautifully depicted world. But just as much, it feels like DnD. The superficial references, like the specific array of iconic monsters the movie draws from and the names of locations and such, even the mechanics of certain spells and items, those are all great, and my partner especially adored some of the more niche references. But like I said earlier, DnD to me is just as much an energy, a feeling, as it is a set of rules and pre-built assets. It's the subtleties of how the party makes their plans and talks about their backstories, the way the world and adventure is framed, even the staging of the final fight scene, all bends conventional action film etiquette in favor of feeling authentic to the experience of playing DnD in a way that works shockingly well, all without shirking the film's duties as a film released in theaters for a mainstream audience. There's not really any moments where I think I'd need to explain something to my mom or anyone equally clueless on DnD's mechanics, they could just watch it as a solid fantasy adventure flick. It's two exceptionally well done layers of enjoyment, which I think is even more exceptional on its own.

So yeah, even to someone who literally knows nothing about DnD, I can recommend this one pretty comfortably. It's a fun action movie that doesn't fall into every pitfall of modern action movies, keeping a sincerely enjoyable solid story to the end. It's not groundbreaking, but it's still great. To someone who does know DnD... well uh, honestly my glowing review wavers a bit depending on how picky you are. If you're willing to excuse the mechanical inaccuracies and oversights for the sake of making the film a more accessible watch to broader audiences, then this film is even better than it is to those audiences. If you're not though, then... well honestly I think that's just as much a "you" problem as it is an issue with the movie. Yes I know nothing short of a level 20 druid can wildshape that much without a rest, just shut up and watch the lady turn into animals a bunch in this cool action scene, it's fine.

On a similar note to adaptations, the next two are also adaptations of game franchises: one that still thoroughly confuses my tiny brain, and one that I think I can confidently say I know a little more about.