Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Among Thieves

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details of classification and consumer advice lines for Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Among Thieves
• a review of Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Among Thieves completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 4 April 2023.

Overall comments and recommendations

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• themes
• use of violence
• material that may scare or disturb children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie’s message

A synopsis of the story

One mistake was all it took – one mistake that changed the course of his life and completely altered his destiny. Edgin (Chris Pine) had been a ‘Harper’, an honourable spy doing everything in his power to help others and to right wrongs. His only complaint was that he had 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. It is at his lowest point that Edgin encounters Holga (Michelle Rodriguez) who takes pity on his little girl, Kira (Chloe Coleman), and helps lift him from the depths of despair. Together the pair form a band of “honourable” thieves that include a simple magician named Simon (Justice Smith) and a master thief called Forge (Hugh Grant), who 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 does so with the hope that he will 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 quickly return but Forge and Sofina have other plans. Edgin and Holga are caught in Sofina’s time trap and are quickly arrested and imprisoned. Simon goes his own way and Forge begins to feed Kira lies about her father, while he, with Sofina’s help, quickly gains vast political power. 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 but they soon see how difficult this task will be and enlist the help of Simon’s former crush, Doric (Sophia Lillis), who is trying to stop Forge from annihilating her tribe and a rogue warrior called Xenk (Rege-Jean Page) who escaped the red wizards as a child and who 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 some of the darkest wizards the world has ever seen?

Magic; Death of a loved one; Supernatural enslavement; Dishonesty; Betrayal; Lust of Power and Greed.

There is some violence in this movie, including:

• Holga grabs a massive troll-like creature, appears to break his legs and then knocks him on the head, leaving 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 him as they throw him 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, who is alive but unconscious.
• Holga and Edgin are about to be executed. She hits their would-be executioner with a brick she rips from the ground. Kicking, hitting, punching, smashing, throwing, tumbling and bashing ensue, before the executioner and guards are all left unconscious and Edgin and Holga are able to escape.
• When a magic trick goes wrong, Simon makes the audience rise up to the ceiling and then everyone falls to the floor.
• One character is pulled up to the sky and then falls through the air and onto a roof.
• Forge sentences a girl to die and Doric, masquerading as a horse, transforms into a giant owl-bear, attacking the guards and executioner who are trying to kill her friend.
• 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, transforms into a big bird, and later a doe, as she is 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 each and every one of them.
• Edgin and his band of thieves must dig up a bunch of corpses on a battlefield to find the location of a magical helmet.
• Scenes of battle are shown in which firebombs are catapulted and a dragon spews rocks from its mouth.
• A baby kitten is shown being pulled from the mouth of a fish that had swallowed it.
• An evil red wizard creates an army of the undead through a powerful spell.
• Xenk fights a small army of red wizards: hitting, punching, slashing, and stabbing them. He slits throats and kills them all, only to have them come back to life and chase the band of thieves out of a cave filled with the bones of countless others who did not 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, chasing 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.
• Helga fights an army of guards in Forge’s forge, one of whom falls into the fire. They attack her and she retaliates with axes, swords and mallets. A guard punches Holga in the face, while others try to stab, hit and kill her. She fights back and 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 tries to attack Holga. Doric chops off the monster’s tongue.
• A giant cube, of what appears to be jelly, dissolves a man and takes the 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 and has it attack 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, bloody one and the two 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 where she crumples to the ground and is buried by rocks.
• Holga is stabbed by Sofina’s blade and lays dying, just like Kira’s mother.
• Forge attacks a giant bird and bashes him into what he thinks is a window but what turns out to be a brick wall instead.

Material that may scare or disturb children

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

• Some of the characters are visually disturbing, such as an evil and gnarled-looking troll, a vicious dragon, terrible monsters, a creature with a raspy voice, a skull face and glowing eyes that lurks in the shadows, along with grotesque-looking zombies (one of whom has an eyeball dangling from its socket) and red wizard demons.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

• Xenk shares how, as a young child, he escaped the red wizards, how his family was turned into the undead and how he, alone, escaped. A red fog descended on the people enveloping them and instantly turning them into demons who did not recognise those they loved. Xenk watched in horror as everyone around him was surrounded by the fog, including a little girl, and how they were all transformed into evil, vicious creatures, screaming, their changed faces suddenly appearing from the fog, and their hands outstretched to ensnare him as he ran for his life with tears streaming down his cheeks.
• Sofina shape-shifts and pretends to be Kira. She laughs at the father’s attempts to help his daughter and transforms scornfully as she ensnares him in vines that begin to protrude from his daughter’s body. She then decrees that he should die in the games they are planning.
• When Holga is stabbed by Sofina’s blade and lays dying, Kira is inconsolable as Holga is the only mother figure she has ever known. Holga dies in Kira’s arms. Shortly thereafter, Edgin brings her back to life with the magic tablet he had hoped to use to bring back his wife.

• Nothing further noted.

Product placement

• None noted.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

• A troll creature makes advances towards Holga, telling her in a sleazy manner that he has never shared a cell with a female before and how much he thinks he will enjoy it.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

• Edgin and his wife are shown in bed together, talking and cuddling. They also kiss briefly.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

• Characters drink at the games that Forge has organised.
• Edgin is shown to be drunk in a pub with his baby girl.
• Edgin and Holga drink in taverns on several occasions.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

• Shit
• Rich bastards and bastard
• Horseshit
• Prick
• Son of a bitch
• Damn
• Shut up
• Moron.

In a nutshell

Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Among Thieves is an action-packed, fantasy adventure, based on the role-playing game, Dungeons and Dragons. The film is well cast, with some excellent special effects and the plot features lots of twists and turns. It demonstrates that even those operating outside of the law can have a certain amount of integrity and honour. Due to its content, the film is best suited to teens and older audiences.

The main messages from this movie are to believe that you are capable of the impossible; to know that great things can be accomplished when you work together; and to never stop trying because the moment you do – that’s when you fail.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

• Teamwork
• Perseverance
• Courage
• Loyalty
• Friendship.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

• Excessive greed.
• Trusting the wrong people and forgetting to think for yourself.
• Listening to an inner voice that quietly whispers: “You can’t” or “You will never be good enough”.
• Betraying your friends.