‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves:’ a surprisingly rollicking good time

Watching Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves with an all-ages full house thoroughly enjoying it, I was reminded of five films: The Princess Bride, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Wizard of Oz, Gladiator, and the 1938 Errol Flynn classic, The Adventures of Robin Hood.

Thieves isn’t as good as any of those movies, but few are. It’s still a surprisingly rollicking good time — no knowledge of the beloved board game needed.

Describing the plots of these types of movies is sort of like describing the consistency of gelatin and about as helpful. Essentially, a group of rogues with varying abilities and levels of confidence go in search of something magical in order to stop bad humans and evil wizards from destroying innocent humans, while they save a loved one. The influence of Game of Thrones is palpable, but Thieves is not as gory, scary, or sexy. With an eye to a broad-based audience (and foreign markets), the movie is multicultural and offers a young, shape-shifting tiefling druid (Sophia Lillis as Doric) who identifies as anything she wishes.

Chris Pine stars as Edgin, a fast-talking good guy of questionable character. He’s lost his wife to death and his daughter to kidnapping and wants to get both back. He teams with Holga (Michelle Rodriguez, who seems to have taken on more of Vin Diesel’s voice) and then they partner with Simon (Justice Smith), a wizard with questionable abilities. They meet Xenk (Regé-Jean Page), who helps them get the magic helmet they need for their quest and also boosts their moral fiber with his innate goodness. Then they go off to see the wizard (Daisy Head as Sofina), who’s using greedy con man Forge (Hugh Grant) to help her gain control of Oz. I mean, Nevermore.

The film is 20 minutes too long, but the banter and special effects keep it moving as our heroes move from one dangerous level to the next.

The technological FX advances movies have undergone over the years are truly remarkable and filmmakers can seem to do nearly anything they can imagine. But this reliance on CGI, green screen, and fantasy worlds lends to laziness in storytelling (new powers are found when new powers are needed) and a lack of character depth.

Thieves is at least the fifth attempt at a D&D movie — the first being the animated version featuring the voices of Willie Aames and Donnie Most — and this one is the best. It’s no Adventures of Robin Hood, but why duel the Sheriff of Nottingham with plain old swords when you can fight wizards who shoot thunderbolts from their fingers? John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein directed and wrote the screenplay with Michael Gillo.

(Rated PG-13. Premieres Friday, March 31, in theaters.)