Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (3/5 Stars)

 

"Oh, Boy, I have a really good feeling about Plan C." - Edgin, Bard

The traditional portrait of a participant in Dungeons & Dragons is a teenage boy, the type prone to non-contact sports and virginity. At least that was the popular portrayal on TV when I was growing up. I didn't really know anybody who played Dungeons & Dragons, and the very few times I came across someone who spoke of it, the stereotype would be confirmed: they would be bragging about being a level 20 dungeon master or something that seemed strange to be openly proud about. 

My first substantial exposure to the game came after school in my mid-twenties. Some of my roommates, all grown men, had a game with other locals. I wasn't involved and regarded my non-involvement with ambivalence. I was generally put off with the requirement to obtain a comprehensive knowledge about something entirely useless. Sure, I was a fan of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, had read the books and watched the movies, but I had never been a superfan. I tried but did not finish the Similarion once I realized that it wasn't so much a story as much as a history. I've never understood the point of a history, or any argument concerning canon, about a make-believe world. It is in fact possible to go to a bookstore and buy a history of real events. Some of them are quite good. There was something undeniable though about the game going on in the living room. It was a lot of fun. There would be laughter emanating from the room for hours on end.

That much garnered enough of my interest that I tried to become involved. Only then did I realize something rather ridiculous about Dungeons & Dragons. It turns out that this much ridiculed thing from our childhood is rather cliquish. It is almost impossible to join a campaign once it has started (indeed, usually someone in the game will have to leave first for anyone to join) and a campaign can go on for years. Then the campaign ends and this same group of people (say 4-6) will start a new campaign and so on and so forth until the same five people have been playing the game together for longer than you ever thought possible.

I had the pleasure of making it into a game of Dungeons & Dragons in 2019 as a player then turning that experience into starting my own groups as dungeon master with friends and family during the pandemic. I found out first hand what made it so fun. Sure, there was a lot of learned knowledge about useless things, but the role-playing portion of it worked a lot like improvisational comedy. As dungeon master, one of the more important tasks is to switch the game back and forth between story and strategy so that neither part of it becomes tiresome. Ultimately, the adventure books one buys and bases the game on are just guidelines. The experience is one created by the group, much like how jazz is created in a club.

I bring this up in this review of the movie, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, to point out what an uphill journey making a movie based on this game surely was. First, the expectations are enormous. The built-in audience doesn't have just have a experience reading a book (maybe 10-20 hours alone) or playing a video game (30-40 hours alone), they may have logged hundreds of hours in the company of others. These nerds will intuitively know whether what is being portrayed on the screen is "realistic" and will likely have qualms about whether or not certain things are possible or certain characters are acting the way they are "supposed to act." 

The expectations problem becomes even more apparent when one considers the improvisational nature of the game. Like hearing a recording of jazz or listening to someone rehash a scene of improvisational comedy, something is definitely lost when the spontaneity of the moment is past. If you have ever listened to a Dungeons and Dragons player gleefully recount the story of the last session, you will know what I mean.

So there it is, you have an audience of judgmental nerds who expect the movie to be a certain way, but the creators better not make it like an actual Dungeons and Dragons session because then it won't work at all. Having given themselves these impossible odds, I think this movie essentially pulls it off. The movie's story works as a movie, while placating the nerds by assuming an enormous amount of knowledge.

I bet a person lacking in any knowledge of Dungeons and Dragons would be entirely lost. The world and its history isn't explained. The players simply inhabit what is known as the Swordcoast. How magic works in this world isn't explained. There isn't a mention of the weave or any types of levels or spell slots. There is very little exposition on the different kinds of beings, classes, and monsters. It is assumed that the audience, or at least the audience that counts, already knows this. At one point, the characters venture into the Underdark. Again, there is little to no explanation as to what that is. They just do it. 

The plot is not improvisational. It actually relies on the most basic of movie tropes. It's a Heist Movie and before the Heist, we've got to Get the Band Back Together. This works quite well in a Dungeons and Dragons movie because we need a team and that team needs to go on a mission. The team will require the basic classes in Dungeons and Dragons: Bard, Barbarian, Sorcerer, Druid. The other classes not in the Team will be on the other side as enemies: Rogue, Wizard. Then there is the Paladin, who is on his own side (of justice and truth of course).

These characters act like these characters should act and the movie employs character actors that slot in quite well into the types. The dashing Chris Pine is our Bard. His best friend the Barbarian is played by Michelle Rodriguez. Hugh Grant plays the dastardly Rogue. Some young people I've never seen in movies before play the Sorcerer and Druid (Justice Smith and Sophia Lillis respectively). One of the writer/directors of this movie is John Francis Daley, one of the titular Geeks in the short lived TV Series Freaks and Geeks. 

The way the story is written and how the characters play off each other will remind you of spending time with old friends. Yes, the Bard and the Barbarian have a special relationship because they have very different skills that make their sum greater than their parts. Yes, the Sorcerer is prime for a good coming of age story arc since his power derives from his bloodline and develops during puberty. Yes, the Paladin will play a part, but only on his goody-two-shoes terms.

So, is this a good movie? Sure, but here is a better question: Is watching this movie more fun than playing Dungeons and Dragons? or an even better question: Is it worth watching this movie if you've never played Dungeons and Dragons? I think the first better question is a wash: If you've played Dungeons and Dragons, you will very likely find this movie entertaining, or more importantly, not annoying. Chris Pine and his weirdly symmetrical face continues to be a flattering avatar for nerds. The second better question is: only if you want to feel excluded. This may be a revelation to you but the nerds are not pining for your company. I recall watching the first episode of the first season of TV Series Stranger Things. The older sister of the main nerd wonders in disbelief: how do you spend all day, ten hours straight, playing a game and not finish it? For myself, it was easier to make friends on the football team. Once you've played Dungeons and Dragons, you will understand.

Wonder Woman (4/5 Stars)

A standard hypocrisy implicitly permeates most action blockbusters, which rely on strong-armed violence to solve problems all the while preaching the modern day values of pacifism and tolerance. In Wonder Woman, such hypocrisy is explicitly brought to the forefront and an elemental part of the plot and philosophy of the movie. Wonder Woman, also known as Diana, the Roman version of the Greek Goddess Artemis, has spent her entire life in the secret realm of the Amazons, a Greek tribe of woman warriors. There is a mythology in her tribe about a woman warrior from stopping all the wars of the world by killing her brother Ares, the Greek God of War. (I’m not sure why Diana and Ares are in the same story. Really it should either be Diana and Mars or Artemis and Ares, but whatever). The secret realm is penetrated accidentally by a British pilot named Steve Trevor in a World War I by-plane escaping German forces circa Istanbul. Steve Trevor, played by Chris Pine, describes to the Amazons for the first time what is going outside their cocoon. It is the War to End All Worlds. It’s been going on for years and seemingly won’t ever stop.

Diana, played by Gal Gadot, sees her destiny. She becomes convinced that a particular German is Ares and that she must take her sword and shield out into the world and kill him in order to end the war. That this plan could possibly work would appall any lightly seasoned student of history. The tragedy of World War I was that it took so long and so many lives before the forces realized that further violence would not help them “win” the war, at least not in any traditional sense of the word, and that neither side was the “bad” side. I had a sinking feeling during much of the movie that Diana might actually succeed in her mission and thus turn the movie into a dangerous piece of revisionist history. It was only until the last twenty minutes that I became relieved that the movie had turned the implicit hypocrisy of the modern blockbuster into a teachable lesson. (Although I have no idea what Wonder Woman may have actually learned if she is still bandying about the modern day world trying to solve problems with sword, shield, and costume.)

Yes, “Wonder Woman” has been competently directed in the fight scenes, but most of the film’s fun comes between the interaction of Chris Pine and Gal Gadot. Steve Trevor though he is right when he describes himself as an above-average male, knows that Diana, being a goddess, is his superior. He takes this in stride and the movie does not make a big deal out of it. Actually, if I had to make a model of one particular aspect of this movie as a teaching point, I would show the superior way “Wonder Woman” treats the subject of misogyny. As this movie takes place in World War I in a European society entirely controlled by men, there must needs to be the obligatory scenes of men objecting to a woman in the room and so on. I’ve seen this scene many times and have learned to take its general heavy-handedness like I take my cough syrup, with reluctance but knowing its good for me. That is until “Wonder Woman.” In this movie, these scenes are are played with nuance and are consistently funny. The point is still being made, but watch “Wonder Woman.” It does it better.

“Wonder Woman” was directed by Patty Jenkins. In 2003, as her directorial debut, Patty Jenkins made the great movie “Monster” starring Charlize Theron. Then she fell off the face of the earth, not directing another mainstream movie for fourteen years until this years “Wonder Woman.” This, in my mind at least, is the best living evidence of the idea that woman directors are treated unfairly in the movie-making industry. Patty Jenkins should be making a movie every other year. She shouldn’t have to wait until a bunch of studio heads sit around a boardroom and conclude after much deliberation that they would look like shmucks if “Wonder Woman” were directed by a man.

More women writers and directors would certainly go a long way in making men look better in movies. “Wonder Woman” is a good example of a trend I’ve spoken of before: that members of one sex have a tendency to idealize members of the other. Well, in “Wonder Woman” the most interesting and noble character isn’t Diana. As the main character in an origin story, she has a lot to learn and must have room to grow. No, the best person is the man, Steve Trevor, and it is his noble efforts to stop the war and help Diana with her mission that provide the heart and soul of the movie. If we had more women writers and directors who wrote stories with women as main characters, we would have more male characters like Steve Trevor, an above-average man, instead of say the multitude of man-childs that have dominated the comedies and blockbusters of the past hundred years of cinema. I will be sorely disappointed if I have to wait another fourteen years for the next Patty Jenkins movie.