Snake Eyes
A couple of weeks ago, I happened to take a look at the long-awaited 4K edition of one of a favorite film of my misspent youth, the 1981 epic Dragonslayer, and was relieved to discover that it has managed to hold up beautifully over the decades. Even as a kid, the fantasy genre—especially those involving some combination of broadswords, jerkins and dragons—was not one that I naturally gravitated to but Matthew Robbins’s film was something else entirely. It was smart, thrilling, funny exciting and contained what I still consider to be the most sensationally effective and frightening dragon ever created. Unfortunately, thanks mostly to the unfortunate timing of its release (it came out in a summer season dominated by Raiders of the Lost Ark, Superman II, Clash of the Titans and many other hits), it bombed in theaters but it would go on to become a cult favorite thanks to cable and home video exposure and when viewers did see it, it proved to be memorable enough to stick with them for a long time afterwards.
By weird happenstance, right at the time I was reacquainting myself with Dragonslayer, I found myself sitting down to watch Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, the latest attempt to bring the famous role-playing game to the big screen, and felt all of my usual antipathies regarding the genre coming back to me in a Proustian rush. It is ironic that a film based on a game that is so dependent on the imagination and creativity of its players should demonstrate so little of those qualities itself. To make matters worse, filmmakers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein have elected to go for a more overtly comedic approach to the material that I assume was meant to expand the potential audience beyond D&D fanatics but which only proves to be a constant irritant. That said, the film does include a dungeon or two and there are a few dragons scattered about, so at least it delivers on that promise, if little else.
Our nominal hero is Edgin (Chris Pine), a glib but fairly dopey thief whose incompetence has led the death of his beloved wife at the hands of a cruel Red Wizard, leaving him alone to try to raise their daughter, Kira (Chloe Coleman). Luckily, he joins forces with a more competent person in the form of barbarian Holga (Michelle Rodriguez) and the two of them split their time between raising Kira and continuing their thieving ways with the help of a pair of associates, budding young sorcerer Simon (Justice Smith) and cheeky con artist Forge (Hugh Grant. . . yes, Hugh Grant). While Kira would prefer that her daddy stay home with her, Edgin is lured into pulling the proverbial one last job—the payoff being a single-use talisman that can bring the dead back to life that he plans to resurrect his wife—but which instead lands him and Holga in prison for two years. All of this is recounted by Edgin at a parole board hearing that initially seems to start as a spoof of clunky and overloaded expository sequences meant to bring new audiences up to speed but soon turns into a prime example of that very thing.
Edgin and Holga escape from prison and go off in search of Forge, who has been caring for Kira in their absence. They track him down to the kingdom of Neverwinter and are surprised to discover that Forge is the ruler of the land, though it appears that Sofina (Daisy Head), the evil Red Wizard at his side is the real power behind the throne. In a move that will shock few, Forge turns out to be a rotter who has poisoned Kira against her father by telling her that he was only after money and never mentioning the mommy-reviving element of the plan that also proved to be a Forge-ery. After sending Kira away, Forge orders the executions of Edgin and Holga but the two manage to once again escape certain death. Determined to retrieve both Kira and the talisman, the two track down Simon, who is utilizing his powers in the service of a haphazard con game, and recruit Doric (Sophia Lillis), a shapeshifter with a vague romantic past with Simon, and the noble knight Xenk (Rege-Jean Page) to help them hatch a plan to get back into Neverwinter and find both Kira and the trinket while the entire city is watching a pseudo-gladiatorial combat pitting teams against all sorts of bizarre creatures, part of a ruse created by Forge to fleece the entire kingdom, not realizing that Sofina has an infinitely more diabolical plan in mind.
Considering the fact that one of the least popular aspects of Dungeons & Dragons, the mostly forgotten 2000 attempt to make the game into a film property, was the alleged comedy relief supplied by Marlon Wayans, it seems odd that Daley, Goldstein and co-writer Michael Gilio would elect to lean so hard on the humorous side of things once again this time around. I presume that by adding in a lot of winking, self-referential humor into the mix, the hope was to avoid the self-serious tone that films of this type can get mired in and make it of more interest to people who have never even looked at a D&D game before in their lives. That isn’t necessarily a bad idea in theory but the attempt at a more irreverent tone—the contemporary equivalent of the old Bob Hope movies where Hope would, regardless of the situation or surroundings, suddenly make wisecracks about Crosby’s horses coming in last once again—doesn’t work here for the simple reason that none of the comedic touches are particularly funny, either on their own or as a commentary on the genre, landing somewhere between one of the lesser Shrek sequels and Your Highness on the laugh meter. The comedic byplay will bring audiences of differing D&D backgrounds together, though perhaps not in the intended way—fans of the game will be annoyed by the attempts as cheekiness getting in the way of the usual fantasy thrills while newcomers will simply find the jokes to be lame and tiresome.
Maybe the jokes mostly falling flat might have been easier to overlook if the more straightforward fantasy elements had been more effective but they don’t work particularly well either. The action beats are big and noisy and filled with CGI fripperies, to be sure, but they generate no real excitement or even any kind of imagery that will stick in the minds of viewers two scenes later. (It has only been a couple of weeks since I’ve seen it but if weren’t for my notes, I would already be drawing a blank regarding most of this.) Perhaps the jokes and the fantasy elements both coming up short might have been forgivable if the actors clicked or at least seemed vaguely comfortable with their surroundings, but that isn’t the case either. Having clearly upped his acting game over the last couple of years—even managing to be the single most interesting element of the otherwise disastrous Don’t Worry Darling—Chris Pine is sadly reduced to playing the kind of silly handsome hero role that might have worked years ago but which seems like a backwards move here. By playing a would-be hero who proves for most of the running time to be little more than a breath of hot air, he’s trying to do the self-deprecating thing, sort of like what Kurt Russell did in Big Trouble in Little China, but since the material isn’t particularly good or funny, it doesn’t work and the supporting cast have similar struggles with their parts. The only one who sort of connects—and is probably the best thing about the film as a result—is Hugh Grant, who seems to have realized early on that the whole enterprise is about as dignified as an Oscar red carpet interview and goes through his scenes seemingly determined to try to amuse himself just long enough to get around to cashing his paycheck. He gets the funniest moment in the film—a throwaway gag where he is elevated on a platform in the arena that goes far higher than his comfort level—but unfortunately isn’t in it enough to really make much of a difference, much to his relief, I suspect.
As befitting both the characters on the screen and the players of the original game, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is a movie with a mission. Alas, in this case, the mission is to make a movie that will win a weekend or two at the box-office before settling into an endless number or airings on TNT in the years to come. My guess is that it will accomplish this goal but if it does well enough to engender a sequel, I suppose there is always the chance that the filmmakers could take a page from the game itself and start over with a better plot, more engaging characters and a more consistent tone than its predecessor. If they are looking for inspiration, there is this 4K Blu-Ray that just came out that might be of interest to them. . .