Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves

Full disclosure - I know bugger all about the game on which this film is based, except that it's loved by nerds all over the world. Well, nerds rejoice, because this is the start of a franchise that will likely peak around film number three and peter out slowly until the money dries up. But let's not think about the future, this first one is a great lark. Plot contrivances aside, it's a breezy little number that didn't outstay it welcome (it's just over 2 hours) and it doesn't try to be anything more than a jokey, charming action fantasy. There are numerous rip-offs or homages - Lord of the Rings, The Princess Bride, even Serenity, at a pinch, and it's all held together by Chris Pine's endearingly failure-laden chancer, Edgin.

The opening hammers through the backstory, introduces the main characters and antagonists, and positions the heroes' journey, all in a functional, albeit slightly muddled manner (I didn't quite catch the reasoning for their initial plan with the vault). The world-building is mercifully brief (not a lot of fan-service so far), yet nice enough to look at, and the action scenes have had a bit of thought put into them. There's one 'reverse' heist involving a carriage and a 'hither-thither staff' that zings along with ingenuity (though it's slightly reminiscent of Rick and Morty).

The cast is pretty handy - late-career, no-fucks-given Hugh Grant is loving the craic as Forge; Michelle Rodriguez is constantly inches away from corpsing as Holga; Regé-Jean Page plays it straight and stiff as ultra-cool Xenk; Justice Smith as half-arsed sorcerer, Simon, and Sofia Lillis as a shape-shifting druid round out the main players, with Pine at the epicentre. There's also his daughter, Kira (Chloe Coleman), and a fearsome wizard, Sofina (who looks like Claire Foy but is actually Daisy Head) to provide the peril.

There are tropes we've all seen before and some folk may bridle at the sentimentality, though it's reasonably mild in this. The co-directors, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein are responsible for the surprisingly fun, Game Night and they have a few other writing successes to their credit too (Horrible Bosses, Spider-Man: Homecoming). With D & D, they've gone and put together an old-fashioned fantasy romp that should satisfy enough pan-generational tits to engender further trips to Westeros, or Middle Earth, or Florin, or whatever the fuck this land is called. When a bear owl pulls a bit of the old 'Hulk-on-Loki', you can't really quibble. I had a near-complete ball with this.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves is playing now in most cinemas (though I saw it at the excellent Palace in Raine Square).

See also:

I was mainly thinking of Rob Reiner's brilliant The Princess Bride (1987), but occasionally drifting towards Richard Donner's underrated Ladyhawke (1985), starring Roy Batty, Catwoman and Ferris Bueller (!).