MovieChat Forums > Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) Discussion > A few noticeable flaws

A few noticeable flaws

posted a year ago by Wuchak (8290)
6 replies | jump to latest

This is a fun, entertaining adventure-fantasy with a good cast, no doubt, but:

- It’s overlong at 2 hours, 14 minutes.
- It needed more depth. Speaking of which...
- It doesn't take itself seriously enough, which also marred the first film from 2000. Maybe this is why I prefer "Wrath of the Dragon God" (2005) and "The Book of vile Darkness" (2012), despite their TV budgets.
- There are too many glaring borrowings from other movies, like the frozen-land prison from “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country,” the bald witch-sorceress from “Conan the Barbarian” (2011), Magneto’s helmet from the “X-Men” flicks, bits from the “Thor” and “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies and a beginning that smacks of "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves."

[–] TandyMan (10640) a year ago

What bugged me is there was a few grammatical errors in the dialog.

[–] Wuchak (8290) a year ago

Ha, ha. Is it not overlong by at least half an hour, too shallow, too campy and glaringly hackneyed?

It's fun, no doubt, but I'll take "Wrath of the Dragon God," despite the TV budget. I even prefer "The Book of Vile Darkness."

[–] TandyMan (10640) a year ago

I've actually never heard of those other two before this thread. Gonna track them down. Thought the last one was the Jeremy Irons one. For sure this movie borrowed a lot from other films. And in the realm of low budget fantasy flicks, I enjoyed stuff like Mythica a good deal more. But nah, I thought the tone of this was fairly spot on. Maybe it was too long. The biggest problems for me was not having the budget to pull off scenes they were attempting. Turning the Underdark into a cave in the ground was more than a little disappointing. But then the pudgy dragon was hilarious. For every silly thing the movie did, I thought they did something else great. It all kinda balanced out. The movie was tedious in respect that we spent a lot of time setting up plans which just failed and were pointless. Wasted a ton of time on that stupid helmet which had a 5 second payoff. Wasted even more time portaling into that vault for no damn reason. I like that they kept hatching schemes that blew up in their face but they didn't need to eat up so much screentime. In that respect it may be too long. I've only seen it once so far so I can't say how this will play after repeat viewings.

[–] Wuchak (8290) a year ago

Good commentary. You probably never heard of those other two because they were released to TV, no doubt because the first one failed at the box office and was/is generally reviled.

[–] TandyMan (10640) a year ago

I'm an old school gamer. Missed 3rd and 4th edition all together. Didn't dip my toes back in the water till 5th dropped. Good solid 20 years there went by without me. Lot of novels I still ain't read too. I got a soft spot for that disaster with Irons and Wayans there. It was so god awful it was utterly brilliant. Most of the time watching this, I found my mind wandering remembering Momoa's Conan and Sorbo's Kull and movies like that. Then I got thinking how this movie got some things right that the Warcraft movie totally botched. And then I got thinking about that god awful Eragon movie. Like you say, it borrowed plenty. Pine was really good in this. This is the sort of stuff he should be doing. I don't hold it against Rodriguez for not buffing up a little for this small movie, but the makeup and costuming department did her barbarian character no favors. Yo, no Paladin powers??? What even was that? I guess he detected evil that one bit. Well anyhow, I hope they make a bunch more of these.

[–] Wuchak (8290) a year ago

I didn't think the 2000 one was that bad. I gave it a 5/10, not quite a ringing endorsement, but it has its entertaining points.