Story
Edgin (Chris Pine) has been a ‘Harper’ all his life, an honourable spy doing everything in his power to help others and right wrongs. His only complaint is that he has nothing to take home to his wife and infant daughter.
When his wife is brutally murdered by red wizards, Edgin blames himself, renounces the Harpers and plummets to rock bottom. At his lowest point, Edgin encounters Holga (Michelle Rodriguez), who takes pity on his little girl, Kira (Chloe Coleman), and helps to lift Edgin from the depths of despair. Together Edgin and Holga form a band of honourable thieves, which includes a simple magician named Simon (Justice Smith) and a master thief named Forge (Hugh Grant).
Forge is secretly in league with Sofina (Daisy Head), an evil red wizard with a plan of her own. When Edgin and Holga agree to help Forge with a dangerous mission, Edgin hopes that he’ll also be able to secure a sacred relic with the power to bring his dead wife back to life. He says nothing about this to Kira and promises to return quickly, but Forge and Sofina have other plans. Edgin and Holga are caught in Sofina’s time trap. They’re quickly arrested and imprisoned, while Simon goes his own way.
Forge begins to feed Kira lies about her father, while he quickly gains vast political power with Sofina’s help. By the time Edgin and Holga escape from prison, Kira is a young woman, Forge rules the land, and the red wizards are on the brink of not only seizing power but of using an ancient spell to create a vast army of mindless demons.
Edgin and Holga seek out Simon, enlisting his help to free Kira from Forge’s influence. They soon see how difficult this task will be. They enlist the help of Simon’s former crush, Doric (Sophia Lillis), who’s trying to stop Forge from annihilating her tribe. They also call on a rogue warrior called Xenk (Rege-Jean Page), who escaped the red wizards as a child and has been fighting their armies ever since.
Will the combined forces of this motley band of thieves be enough to stop the supernatural powers of the darkest wizards the world has ever seen?
Themes
Magic; death of a loved one; supernatural enslavement; dishonesty; betrayal; lust of power and greed
Violence
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves has some violence. For example:
- Holga grabs a massive troll-like creature, appears to break his legs, knocks him on the head and leaves him unconscious.
- Red wizards attack Edgin’s wife, leaving her bleeding on the floor. Edgin returns home to find her dying. With her last ounce of strength, she points to the place where she has hidden their daughter.
- Holga and Edgin smash a window to steal jewellery.
- Holga attacks a guard with her chains.
- Edgin and Holga abduct a giant bird, holding tight to it as they throw it out a window. They plummet to the earth, bang along the ground and eventually come to a stop on the rocky outcrop of a snowy mountain. They leave the bird, which is alive but unconscious.
- Holga and Edgin are about to be executed. She hits the executioner with a brick she rips from the ground. There’s kicking, hitting, punching, smashing, throwing, tumbling and bashing. The executioner and guards are all left unconscious, and Edgin and Holga escape.
- When a magic trick goes wrong, Simon makes the audience rise up to the ceiling and then everyone falls to the floor.
- A character is pulled up to the sky and then falls through the air and onto a roof.
- Forge sentences a girl to die. Doric disguises herself as a horse and then transforms into a giant owl-bear. She attacks the guards and executioner who are trying to kill the girl.
- Doric’s head is nearly cut off by a guard. She transforms into a mouse and escapes into the dungeon but is relentlessly pursued. She jumps out of a window, falls into a chimney and transforms into a big bird and later a doe. She’s blasted by fire and arrows while attempting to escape from Forge’s compound.
- A red wizard strikes down the group of guards that let Doric escape, slicing through all of them.
- Edgin and his band of thieves must dig up a bunch of corpses on a battlefield to find the location of a magic helmet.
- Battles scenes show firebombs being catapulted and a dragon spewing rocks from its mouth.
- A baby kitten is pulled from the mouth of a fish that has swallowed it.
- An evil red wizard creates an army of the undead through a powerful spell.
- Xenk fights a small army of red wizards. He hits, punches, slashes and stabs them. He slits throats and kills them all. They come back to life and chase the thieves out of a cave filled with the bones of countless others who didn’t escape.
- A huge dragon bursts into the room and begins to eat the red wizards while the cave begins to crumble and collapse around them.
- The dragon rolls and thrashes and is about to eat Edgin when Xenk stabs his sword into the dragon’s head, driving the blade down into his skull.
- Holga hits the dragon with an axe as it continues to come after them. It chases them into a tiny cavern from which there appears to be no escape.
- A fiery explosion blasts them from the cave.
- Simon is repeatedly blasted out of a helmet.
- Holga fights an army of guards in Forge’s forge, one of whom falls into the fire. They attack her, and she fights back with axes, swords and mallets. A guard punches Holga in the face, while others try to stab, hit and kill her. She fights back. Characters are strangled with chains.
- Simon punches his grandfather in the face.
- Doric is knocked unconscious.
- Twisting vines and ropes ensnare Edgin.
- A monster from a maze devours a man with his tentacles.
- A dwarf smashes at a cheetah and is then taken by another.
- A chest with gnashing teeth and a long tongue grabs and attacks Holga. Doric chops off the monster’s tongue.
- A giant, jelly-like cube dissolves a man and takes a cuff from Doric’s wrist.
- Characters are nearly crushed by cages.
- Forge holds a knife to Kira’s throat.
- Holga throws a potato at Forge.
- Red fog descends on the people in a stadium. They begin to choke and froth at the mouth.
- Fire blasts rain down from a red wizard.
- Sofina makes a stone dragon come to life. It attacks Holga and the others.
- Holga attacks the dragon. Doric transforms into an owl-bear to attack the dragon, but the dragon tries to bite the owl-bear and kill Holga.
- A character is blasted off a roof.
- A grotesque, fleshy hand chases Doric.
- Simon conjures a stone hand to battle the fleshy hand. The giant hands battle in the courtyard.
- Simon is grabbed and thrown across the courtyard.
- When Sofina’s magic is neutralised, Doric slams her repeatedly into the courtyard stones and throws her up against a wall. Sofina crumples to the ground and is buried by rocks.
- Holga is stabbed by Sofina’s blade and lies dying, just like Kira’s mother.
- Forge attacks a giant bird and bashes him into what he thinks is a window. It turns out to be a brick wall.
Sexual references
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves has some sexual references. For example, a troll creature makes advances towards Holga. He tells her in a sleazy way that he has never shared a cell with a female before and he thinks he’ll enjoy it.
Alcohol, drugs and other substances
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves shows some use of substances. For example:
- Characters drink at the games that Forge has organised.
- Edgin is drunk in a pub with his baby girl.
- Edgin and Holga drink in taverns on several occasions.
Nudity and sexual activity
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves has some nudity and sexual activity. For example, Edgin and his wife are shown in bed together, talking and cuddling. They also kiss briefly.
Product placement
There’s no product placement in Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.
Coarse language
There’s some coarse language, name-calling and insults in Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.
Ideas to discuss with your children
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is an action-packed, fantasy adventure, based on the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons. The movie is well cast. It also has some excellent special effects, a plot full of twists and turns and positive messages about acting with integrity and honour, even if you’re working outside the law.
Because of its content, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is best suited to teenagers and older audiences.
These are the main messages from Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves:
- Believe that you’re capable of the impossible.
- Know that you can accomplish great things if you work with others.
- Never stop trying. The moment you do is the moment you fail.
Values in Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves that you could reinforce with your children include teamwork, perseverance, courage, loyalty and friendship.
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves could also give you the chance to talk with your children about the real-life consequences of things like:
- being greedy
- trusting the wrong people and forgetting to think for yourself
- thinking that you can’t do things or aren’t good enough
- betraying your friends.