Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves -Hot Take

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 Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023 US) Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez lead a campaign in the fantasy comedy. I use the word campaign because it really ran like a D&D campaign complete with side quests. I know its not part of the Animation April campaign but I went to see it yesterday and had to share. It had a lot of FX so that can be a form of animation (CGI). So yeah that's what I'm going with. John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein write and direct. They clearly are D&D fans. In fact I heard that they had the cast play D&D. Believe it or not this isn't the first time a campaign made it to the screen. Vin Diesel admitted that The Last Witch Hunter was his character and campaign. In fact, he told Rodriguez that he was Jelly of her role in this film. Now for the question Du'Jour. Do you need to know D&D to get the film and the answer is "Nope". You can just go and watch. If you do game you will get a ton of references. One scene that stood out for me as being PC (player/character) led is one of the characters goes to extra, extra lengths to make sure a baddie was indeed dead and can no longer get up. Yes, but was it good? The word I would use to describe it is fun. I loved it and so did a lot of other people. It's doing great at the Box Office. I really do feel that audiences are going for fun and satisfying films right now. Makes sense. Chris Pine is fun to watch and clearly there are moments that are improvised. So again the word fun comes up. Now to the controversy. There's always a controversy. Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast (D&D) recently revoked licenses to smaller gaming companies that make companion games. This is the stickler. The license had existed for years allowing these smaller companies to publish books based on the D&D system. That license was abruptly and unceremoniously pulled. OMG people were so piffed. There was discussion in my household and circle whether we should go see it because of it. I hear Wizards of the Coast backed off but can't confirm. We did go to encourage more stories in this vein. Maybe a Stormbringer film? See it in theaters right now 

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