Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is a comedy and action fantasy movie based on Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), the tabletop role playing game. You follow Edgin and his adventuring band as they attempt to rescue Edgin’s daughter. They are betrayed, then drawn into something larger and more insidious that threatens the whole city of Neverwinter within the Forgotten Realms.

One challenge with bringing D&D to the screen is that D&D is a game system upon which different locations and characters are built and played. It is not a single place with known characters. Even the game’s themes vary with different settings, such as Dark Sun’s post-apocalyptic rebuilding, the pseudo-Middle Earth of Greyhawk and the intrigue-filled Forgotten Realms.

Another challenge is what makes D&D successful and enjoyable, like the many tabletop role playing games that followed it, is active participation. While there is a Dungeon Master that guides play, D&D is about cooperative storytelling and spontaneity over fixed character development arcs and well-developed plots. It is camaraderie. It is living popular tropes, not just passively consuming them.

By comparison, fantasy and science-fiction movies and novels usually adopt the setting to disarm the reader for some form of social commentary. For example, J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit was about conflict between the English upper, middle and lower classes. Robert E. Howard’s Conan warned against the evils of unrestrained technology. Characters develop and events occur to support that aim, all under the director’s or author’s strict guidance. 

Previous D&D movies and many novels failed because they took the settings or signature creatures, spells and classes from D&D and put them in heroic and epic but themeless fantasy stories. They inherited the disadvantages of both D&D and movies or novels without either’s advantages.

Thankfully, Honor Among Thieves learns from these mistakes and recent successes, like the Marvel franchise. It works for four reasons.

The first is respecting the soul of D&D. D&D is about heroic fantasy, where inspiring good and terrifying evil exist. Players raise sword and spell to defend those who cannot.  

However, the players or audience need to feel emotionally invested. It has to be personal. Without emotional grounding, gravitas becomes self-importance and the solemn becomes cringeworthy. Honor Among Thieves starts at the most basic, with a husband pining after his wife and daughter, routes through betrayal and only then ups the ante to something epic. The movie has heart.

The second reason is respecting D&D as a beloved, forty-year-old IP. Players will recognise iconic spells, classes and creatures. Those familiar with the Forgotten Realms setting will enjoy the references, from the overt, like Baldur’s Gate and the Harpers, to the subtle, like Selune’s Tears. The adventurers from the 1980s Dungeons and Dragons cartoon appear in the arena. There are not one but two dragons.

Honor Among Thieves feels like a D&D “campaign” or sequence of play sessions. It is long at around two hours but keeps the pace moving, jumping locations quickly without labouring. Locales include medieval cities, the Underdark and eponymous dungeons. The swerving plot gives the feeling of spontaneity and improvisation. The special effects and fight choreography are on point, giving each character a chance to shine. The final climactic battle demonstrates the power of the adventuring group at its satisfying culmination.

To be fair, Honor Among Thieves is not always faithful to the D&D rules. Paladins making Handle Animal skill checks and druids wild shaping into The Incredible Hulk-like owlbears will leave D&D rules lawyers shaking their heads. Under the guise of a relatable audience surrogate, the movie strips Edgin’s bard of his magic and combat prowess. However, these transgressions are minor and forgivable.

The third reason is not taking itself too seriously without being disrespectful. Often, an unexpected joke or an Instagram-worthy lousy dice roll can be a highlight of the session. Honor Among Thieves contains plenty of humour, from accidentally setting off traps, underestimating the literal wording of spells or the questionable tastes of intellect devourers. Without it, this movie would be a sequence of action-heavy fights having to one-up itself each time. It keeps the tone light.

For example, Xenk, the Paladin, could easily be overplayed to the point of ridicule. He literally and metaphorically does not swerve from his path of righteousness. However, his misunderstanding of irony is endearing. His aloofness opens room for forgiveness. He simultaneously contrasts the more chaotic nature of the rest of the party and inspires them toward greatness. Edgin, his adventuring band and the audience want to make fun of Xenk but cannot.

The fourth reason Honor Among Thieves works is its themes. Like Guardians of the Galaxy and The Avengers, it deals with family and self-realisation. You know the good guys are going to win. The question is how and whether they can overcome their relatable self-doubt and dysfunction to realise their potential. Seeing heroes struggle with the same fears as us brings the audience and players closer, humanising the heroes and subtly suggesting that we can all be heroic.

Honor Among Thieves is fun. It is fast and flashy enough to keep the audience’s attention and sassy enough to be credible without disrespecting D&D. You will enjoy Honor Among Thieves if you like the recent Marvel movies, heroic fantasy or play any tabletop role-playing game. If not, it will continually imply that you are missing something. Honor Among Thieves will not win any awards but is a solid cross-over that players have been waiting decades for.