“Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” is a standard fantasy action film that is entertaining enough and can be enjoyed by D&D players and everyone else equally. I did enjoy this film, but nothing about it really stood out to me as extraordinary.

Technically, it looked great. The environments they were in were interesting and fun to watch, the costumes for the most part were also very well done, and the animation and CGI was definitely up to par with other modern films of today, it didn’t look dated. The film was vibrant and interesting, which given the source material almost had to be a given.

D&D has such detailed lore and worldbuilding, it would only make sense that this would transfer over to its film. The music and sound design was equally exciting, and pretty much every actor was entertaining and engaging. The only real issues I had with this film were very slight details with character design and a bit of the plot.

Starting firstly with design, my only complaint is that it felt like they were too scared to commit to some of the more interesting types of characters in D&D. I will start this by saying I have a limited experience with the game, I’ve played some for sure but am not a superfan and do not know the minute details of everything lore wise. I do know, however, that the tiefling character they had just looked like a normal human.

In D&D, tieflings are a race of humanoid people that appear somewhat devil or demon-like, usually with horns, tails, and often different skin pigmentation. The tiefling character in this movie did have horns for sure, but for the most part she looked almost identical to the other humans in the party. This isn’t necessarily bad, but her design could have been way more interesting, especially considering that they didn’t shy away from showing other fantastical D&D races throughout this film.

I think one of the more interesting parts of D&D is the variety in stories that are often told through it, and that includes variety in characters. As for the other minor issue I had with this film, the plot. I think the story being told was great in terms of character development, almost all of the main cast have some sort of emotional growth and resolution throughout the journey, the villain is menacing and fun to watch, and the threat feels real, but the issue I do have is that the threat is also unclear. Like the main threat makes sense, but without spoiling the ending, there is a secondary conflict that I feel like isn’t explained in enough detail, at least not to casual viewers who may not know the lore of D&D extensively.

Regardless, the emotional beats in this film outweigh that in my opinion, which is what I tend to notice happens in real sessions of D&D as well, so the directors definitely understood that aspect at the least. Overall, this film was pretty good. I think there were strong moments that carried it over slower parts that were less interesting, and worldbuilding that carried it over issues with plot. I think this movie is good for anyone regardless of knowledge of D&D, but if you’re a superfan, you might enjoy it more than I did, you might know more than I do. If so, enjoy.