D&D: A Family Friendly Fantasy

Release Date：Mar/31/2023

Genre：Action/Adventure/Fantasy

Director：John Francis Daley、Jonathan Goldstein

Cast：Michelle Rodriguez、Chris Pine、Sophia Lillis、Regé-Jean Page、Justice Smith、Hugh Grant

Viola's Rating：8.2

Dungeons & Dragons is a classic fantasy pen-and-paper role-playing game that was first published in 1974, and since then, it has become so renowned that numerous comics, computer games, feature films, magazines, novels, television series and video games have been derived from it. On Mar 31, 2023, the latest related film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was released, and as a family friendly fantasy, it has been critically acclaimed.

Based on the tabletop game of the same name, this adventurous action fantasy tells the story of a charming bard and a group of unlikely adventurers. They embark on an epic quest to retrieve a lost relic, but things go dangerously awry when they run into the wrong people.

As most adventures, there are a bunch of “levels” in Dungeons & Dragons for the protagonists to deal with. Some are difficult to solve while some are easy to tackle. Throughout the journey, the audience gets to see the danger and excitement of an adventure along with the happiness in the end when they achieve the goals that send them to the road.

All the characters are unique with their own characteristics depending on their classes, occupations and races. Moviegoers who are familiar with D&D may recognize each character easily while non-D&D players can still enjoy the flick without knowing the jargons. Even with flaws, every character is appealing and interesting in their own ways, thus they’re all very likable.

Although Dungeons & Dragons isn’t a comedy, there are a lot of punchlines. Audience can either perceive them as some mistakes made by the players behind the characters or the malicious intention of the dungeon master aka the campaign host or the screenwriter in this case, which add a big amount of laughter to the experience.

Actually, Dungeons & Dragons is a motion picture about failures. All the characters start this journey because of one or more failures in their lives, and throughout the adventure, more and more failures keep coming, and they need to remake plans again and again. However, the core value of the movie is that when there’s a will, there’s a way, so we better believe in ourselves.

Even if you’re not a D&D player, as long as you’ve played enough board games or RPG, you’ll be able to recognize the game related references. For example, there are stupid rules that nobody knows the reason why it’s set that way, but it is what it is. Also, NPCs will not respond to anything that’s not related to the mission itself. The key is to remember that there’s a player behind each character that’s controlling them.

All in all, Dungeons & Dragons is a picture that’s highly enjoyable and an adventure worth taking as a family. If you believe in it, it won’t let you down!

Picture Credit: IMDb