May, 2023
By Brandon Gonzalez, Staff Reporter
Dungeon and Dragons, a fantasy board game, where a group of players essentially tell a story as a whole letting the player choose any setting, for example standard sword and sorcery environments, horror and even space-travel themes, leading heroes on risky journeys as they hunt for treasure, face off against deadly opponents, and even carry out daring rescues. The sole restriction on the adventure itself is the players’ creative imagination.
Dungeons & Dragons has flopped before on the big screen, with the 2000 feature film starring Jeremy Irons and Marlon Wayans taking the most relentless thrashing that Roger Ebert said “It’s a film that’s rich in fantasy terminology in a way that seems like its creators affectionately remember creating characters in their mom’s basement when they were young”. However, Dungeons & Dragons fortunes just changed. A new feature film has arrived at Paramount Pictures following an extended dispute over intellectual property rights. Finally, everything seems to have aligned for this beloved game to have a second life on screens. Called “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves”, having its world premiere on March 10, 2023, and released in the United States on March 31, 2023, lasting a total of 134 minutes.
The movie introduces us to two imprisoned friends, Edgin Darvis, a bard, and Holga Kilgore, a barbarian, who have been incarcerated for three years for larceny and skullduggery. As the duo pleads for their release to prison chancellors, we learn about their backstory from Edgins, Edgin used to be a member of the Harpers, a secret organization that is dedicated to fight against tyranny and bring justice into the land. Edgin was married to Zia and lived a modest life. But undertaking missions for the Harpers came with severe consequences. During a mission, Edgin and his associates managed to capture some Red Wizards, a cult of magicians and necromancers dreaded by the rest of the populace. The Red Wizards retaliated by breaking into Edgin’s house in his absence and murdering Zia. Before her death, Zia managed to secure their newborn child, Kira, inside a cabinet. After Zia’s passing Edgin hit his lowest point and in that moment Edgin met Holga, after they merged they started to get along and take of Kira and they took up in thievery as a profession to earn quick money along they way they recruited less-than average sourced Simon Aumar and conman Forge Fitzwilliam. They later get a job offer to assist a Wizard named Sofina to steal from Harper’s stronghold, Edgin refuses the job offer until he learns them at there’s a relic called the Tablet of Reawakening which could resurrect Zia, his wife. They later on get betrayed by Sofina as she freezes time and captures Edgin and Holga, but before Edgin gets captured he throws the relic towards Forge and tells him to take Kira for him, after telling his backstory to the chancellors the duo manage to escape. They come to find out that Forge has become a lord of a city called Neverwinter and is raising Kira, so the duo decide to head out to Neverwinter.
Paramount Pictures captures every scene just right, with their amazing scenery while Edgin and Holga go to Neverwinter we get to see the wide ranges of landscapes to even the cgi used in the movie it’s captured so well, to the comedic scenes throughout the movie.
Upon reaching the city the duo find that Forge is assisted by Sofina, he also spun Kira a lie about her father, saying that Edgin left her in search of riches which makes Kira angry towards her father. Later as Forge and Edgin talk Forge captures the duo with Sofinas help and order to execute the duo later on escapes again, the duo go back to Neveriwnter to get the Forge vault and take the relic and prove Kira’s fathers innocence but before they do that they go out and recruit 2 people one Simon and The other a new character named Doric, abandoned as a child due her appearance as a tiefling we also see that Doric is able to shapeshift. Doric uses her shapeshifting powers to takedown Forge’s troops as she frees her friends, we see that Sofina is actually a red wizard making her objective to turn its inhabitants into undead servants.
Once the duo come across the vault they see that the vault is protected by a magic spell that Simon is not able to break. So now the duo along with Simon and Doric go on a side job to seek the Helmet of Disjunction which is believed to counter the magic spell. Once they acquire the helmet Simon tries to attune to it but can’t and gets thrown out of the physical plane by the vision of his great-great-grandfather, They head out again towards Neverwinter so retrieve the relic to finally show Kira that Edgins innocent. They infiltrate the castle yet again and try many methods to gain access to the vault, while Doric enters the carriage of riches through the portal. Edgin. Holga, and Simon distract the guards and infiltrate the tower, But Doric’s way does not lead her to the vault and ends up captured, meanwhile Holga and Simon get cornered by the guards and simon makes one last attempt to attune with the helmet and succeeds, but they find nothing inside the vault and get captured. Edgin even gets captured too due to Sofinas magic, Edgin tries to negotiate with Forge to enter his team Forge offers him a chance of survival in the High Suns games. The team enters and escapes to the docks where Forge arrives with Kira as the team gain the relic and expose Forge ruse to Kira, but Forge holds Kira hostage to force the team to surrender. But the team manages to retrieve Kira and Forges riches, Sofina sees this as begins her ritual of Beckoning Death the team sees this from a far and steer the ship back to help the people escape. Sofina and the team get into a vicious battle with the team Sofina uses the freeze-time spell again but this time Kira uses her invisibility spell to bind Sofina with a magic dampener and Simon counters hers leading to Sofina defeat.
But Holga faced a fatal injury which couldn’t be treated, and now Edgin has the choice to choose to resurrect Holga or his wife Zira. Edgin remembers some of the best memories he and Kira had with Holga as a family, and from helping the bard in his worst times, Holga had always been by Edgin’s side, even when everyone else lost their faith. After going through everything, the struggles the group had to endure to give Edgin a chance to rectify his sins by bringing his wife Zia back to life don’t seem worth it with a friend like Holga gone. Edgin decides to abandon his personal goal of bringing his wife back and instead uses the (one-time-use) Talisman of Reawakening to bring Holga back to life. What’s the spirit of fantasy and adventure? If not honoring the friendship, the movie shines the resolution at its best.
Ever since its release on the big screen it has grossed $92.2 million in the U.S and 203.8 million worldwide, having a 90% in audience score in Rotten Tomatoes, it’s a good movie if you’re looking for a fantasy comedic movie to watch.
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