Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Nerds

 

Buckle up nerds it's time for a D&D movie! And for you massive nerds reading this and saying "um, actually Dan, this isn't the first D&D movie", first of all, I don't care! And second of all, I've actually seen that movie, and it sucks! So therefore it does not exist in my mind.

That being said, this film does exist in my mind because it's pretty good! Even if you aren't a dice rolling, mountain dew drinking loser like me you'll still have a good time because this movie spends little to no time referencing the game it's based on. Well, kind of. So like, the places and stuff are from the game, but you don't need to know anything about D&D before you see this.

It's full of heart from start to finish, it feels like it was made by people who actually play the game and know what these kind of stories look like. The main story is fairly simple, there's bad guys trying to do a bad thing, our characters want to stop them, make some money and fix some relationships in the process. Every character in the group feels pretty clear as to what their role is and why they are doing what they are doing, although some do feel a little sidelined but that's bound to happen when you have five 'leads'.

Our main leads are Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez, who are both quite frankly great in this. Chris Pine plays a bard who is a bit of a bad dad with a dead wife, Rodriguez is his mate who messed up a good thing she had in terms of a relationship in the past, so they're both a bit lost and looking to find their family (and then there is a big aww when you realise they do find their family but the family they found is the one forged during the events of this movie).

It's like a 7/10, a good fun time and if you roll dice with your nerd friends like I do it's an 8 because after you get to go "that's just like this from our campaign!"

DUNGEONS AND SPOILERS AHEAD

So the thing Chris Pine is after is a one use thing that undoes death, he's gonna bring back his dead wife who we meet in flashbacks, it's massively on the nose as in these flashbacks she's like "you need to let go of thingsssss, some things have to leave foreverrrrr" so then at the end when the revival stone thing is there and Michelle Rodriguez is dead as balls you can tell he's like ah man I have to bring back Michelle because my daughter thinks she's the t*ts and quite frankly so do I.

Oh also I really enjoy that they didn't have Chris Pine and Rodriguez do a sex. It would have been so easy to just have their relationship become romantic but I like movies showing actually a man and woman can just be mates, I feel like that is not done enough in action/adventure movies and it's nice here.

Big little cameo from Bradley Cooper, who is actually little and the halfling effect they use for him isn't very good to be honest. All I kept thinking was, why is all the furniture in his house only designed for regular sized people? Like, I get his wife is a regular sized human, but why doesn't he get a wittle chair since he's a wittle boy? Also I thought halflings had like the kind of dimensions that suit that smaller size? Like it's just Bradley Cooper but wittle. I dunno, it looks weird.

There's a great joke early on in the movie, spekaing of weird things, where Pine and Rodriguez break out of prison using an Aarakockra (I definitely spelt that wrong but I'm not checking, suck it nerds) who are basically bird people, and it feels like a D&D joke at the table that just keeps going. Like I could feel the DM panicking "uhh, his names Jarnathan" and then the players are like "we are waiting for him to get here then" and then the DM keeps trying to get them to go ahead with the encounter but then just sighs, gives up and says "fine, Jarnathan arrives" then the players say "we grab him and jump out the window" and then the DM starts crying and panicking.

I'm a BIG fan of the druid Doric. The way they show the wild shape is just so damn cool, I wish we had more time with her character and I hope she gets some more space in sequel/spin-off city. She has a really cool vibe and seems kind of a bit rude early on but then you realise humans killed a lot of her people and do a big racism against her because she's a Tiefling and you're like you know what? I'd be rude too! At the end she's cooler though and even says she'll let the big warlock nerd court her, which is cute. I enjoy the warlock nerd too by the way! We get a good demonstration of his powers early on but see he's not like AMAZING at this. All these characters kinda suck at what they do, well except one.

And that one is the hilarious paladin, who comes along for a bit and is this hilariously deadpan guy that brings real Drax from Guardians of the Galaxy energy. He just doesn't get jokes and is often frustrated by these dumb idiots. It works so well and results in some of the best moments of the movie.

Oh, speaking of dudes I love, HUGH GRANT! He's so good in this! Just a dog of a bloke, slimy as, not even evil really just selfish and easily manipulated by the big bad witch. He does some awesome, threatening stuff at points for the most part he feels like a horrible little slimeball. Like, he even tries to gaslight Chris Pine's daughter into being his daughter, but it's like he wants the daughter relationship without any of the effort/needing to find a woman that will actually be his wife.

There's a big fat dragon, they maybe do a few too many fatphobic sounding jokes but still it's a laugh and a totally fun twist on dragons.

The final battle is resolved in a real D&D way and you can feel when the characters rolled poorly that really makes things feel funny for those of us that play. All ends well and me and my mates had a laugh, couldn't ask for much more from the D&D movie. I'm happy, you will be too, go see it!