DUNGEONS & DRAGONS : HONOUR AMONG THIEVES - Tuesday 4th April 2023.

I saw the M Rated 'DUNGEONS & DRAGONS : HONOUR AMONG THIEVES' this week, and this American fantasy heist action comedy film is Directed and Co-Written by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, based on the tabletop role-playing game 'Dungeons & Dragons'. This film bears no connection to the original trilogy of films that launched with the feature film 'Dungeons & Dragons' in 2000, then the made for TV 'Dungeons & Dragons : Wrath of the Dragon God' in 2005 and the direct to video third film 'Dungeons & Dragons 3 : The Book of Vile Darkness' in 2012. The film was originally set to be released on 23rd July 2021 but due to scheduling conflicts, the COVID-19 pandemic, and various other studio delays a release date of two weeks ago in the US and last week in Australia was finally set upon, having seen its World Premier screening at SXSW earlier in March. It has garnered positive critical reviews, and cost US$150M to produce, and has so far grossed US$83M in Box Office receipts.

The film opens up in Revel's End arctic prison where Bard Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine) and his barbarian accomplice Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez) have been holed up for the past two years. Edgin stands before a panel of three judges explaining his back story and the reasons why he and Holga should be pardoned for their past crimes and released. Edgin spent years as a member of the Harpers, an order of peacekeepers, until a Red Wizard he had antagonised killed his wife. Accompanied by Holga, Edgin attempted to make a new life for himself and his daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman) by turning to theft, teaming with amateur sorcerer Simon Aumar (Justice Smith) and rogue Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant), along with the latter's mysterious acquaintance, Sofina (Daisy Head). While robbing a Harper stronghold, Edgin attempted to steal a 'Tablet of Reawakening' to bring his wife back to life, but he and Holga were captured, while their accomplices escaped with the Tablet.

We then come back to Edgin's plea for release, as he and Holga manage to escape from the prison by clinging onto a human sized bird, Chancellor Jarnathan (Clayton Grover), as he smashes through a window high up in the prison tower and glides the pair some distance away to safety as Chancellor Anderton (Nicholas Blane) cries after them that he had approved their release. And so the pair escape to Neverwinter and learn that Forge has become Lord there, after its prior Lord was stricken down by some mysterious illness. Forge has been taking care of Kira during the last two years, and has convinced her that Edgin's greed and selfishness led to his imprisonment. Sofina is revealed to be a Red Wizard, and she and Forge deliberately orchestrated the capture of Edgin and Holga.

Sofina tries, unsuccessfully, to dispense with Edgin and Holga, but they escape and decide to rob Forge's vault and bring Kira home with them during the upcoming High Sun Games at the stadium, needing the Tablet to prove their innocence. The gladiatorial games had previously been banned, but Forge resurrected them, promising the locals that the games would bring in tourists and money, and it's what the people want anyhow. Edgin and Holga track down Simon to help and he suggests also recruiting Doric (Sophia Lillis), a druid, whose forest community is battling against the forced logging handed down by Forge.

Doric gains access to Forge's castle by shapeshifting into various animal forms and finds the vault has magical defences which Simon says he lacks power to disable. Simon suggests that a magic relic, 'The Helm of Disjunction' could disable them. They travel to an old graveyard to ask Holga's ancestors where to find it. Simon resurrects the dead with a talisman long enough for them to answer five questions, with the corpses revealing they gave the Helm to Xenk Yandar (Rege-Jean Page), a paladin who fled his country, Thay, when Red Wizards turned his people into an army of the undead.

After getting to know each other Xenk, forces Edgin to swear to distribute any gained treasures to the people, leads the group through a vast subterranean network of tunnels and caverns known as the Underdark where the Helm has been secretly stashed away. With the help of a teleportation staff obtained from Holga's halfling ex-husband Marlamin (Bradley Cooper), they find the relic, but are attacked by Thayan assassins ordered by Sofina. Xenk fights off the assassins and helps the group escape from an overweight and less than agile red dragon, before exiting.

Simon is unable to master the Helm's power, so they decide to use the teleportation staff to enter the vault during the games. Simon and Holga are able to enter the magically-sealed door after Simon is able to master the Helm's power, but find the room behind it empty except for a magical trap. The whole group is captured and instead of death on the spot choose to participate in the games, but are able to escape after successfully negotiating several challenges and obstacles. Doric discovers that Forge has loaded the treasure onto a boat and is preparing to flee, so the group steals the boat for themselves and rescues Kira from Forge, who threatened Kira's life.

About a mile out to sea, the group realise that Sofina organised the games to draw a massive crowd and turn them into an army of the undead using the same curse that destroyed Thay. The group returns and transports Forge's stolen riches out of the boat with the teleportation staff and scatters them across the city, as Edgin had promised Xenk, so drawing the people out of the stadium before Sofina's spell can take effect.

Angered by her defeat, Sofina attacks the group, but Simon is able to master his magic and reverse Sofina's time-stop spell, allowing Kira to use an invisibility pendant Edgin and Holga had given her as a child to place an anti-magic bracelet on Sofina. Sofina is subsequently killed when attacked by Doric in her shapeshifting owlbear form and is then crushed by falling rubble from a building she was slammed into. However, Holga is fatally injured in the battle and dies in Kira's arms with Edgin looking on. Edgin uses the Tablet (which can only be used once) to bring her back to life, as he accepts that he wanted to bring back his wife only for his own sake while Holga had become a true part of their family. Now fully recovered from his mystery illness, the old Lord of Neverwinter declares the team heroes of the realm and Forge is sent to Revel's End, where he is seen one year into his sentence pleading with the Chancellor's for his early release, which they reject. 

'Dungeons & Dragons : Honour Among Thieves' is an OK movie, but that's as far as I would go with my praise for this fantasy action comedy offering. I didn't love it and I also didn't hate it either. It's a very simple story that unfolds well enough, but it's also quite silly in places and at times it meanders along at a snails pace before lurching into the next action set piece with barely any real impact on the storyline other than padding. Chris Pine is on good form here as the charming happy-go-lucky bard Edgin; as is Michelle Rodriquez as the type cast tough-as-nails ass-kicking heroine; with more than admirable turns from Justice Smith, Rege-Jean Page, Sophie Lillis and Hugh Grant to round out the principle cast and who all bring a not too serious light hearted tone to the picture, although I'm not sure I would rush out to see further instalments should this become a franchise.

'Dungeons & Dragons : Honour Among Thieves' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

IT : Tuesday 12th September 2017.

'IT' which I saw earlier this week is the Stephen King penned remake of the 1990 two part television mini-series, based on his acclaimed and best selling 1986 horror story 'It'. Since 2009 this film has been in development, with Cary Fukunaga first announced to Direct and Co-Write the film, but subsequently dropping out in 2015 due to disagreements with Production Company, New Line, over the direction that he wanted to take the film in. Subsequently Argentinian Director, Andres Muschietti was announced to Direct, whose previous credit was his debut feature with 2013's supernatural horror offering 'Mama' with Jessica Chastain and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. 'It' was released in the US last week too, and cost a budgeted US$35M, and has so far grossed US$218M breaking numerous Box Office records in the process too. The film has been critically acclaimed as perhaps the best and most faithful to the source material of all Stephen King's works thus far committed to celluloid. As the end credits tell us, this is 'IT - Chapter One' - the first instalment in a two part series.

The film kicks off with a rain soaked day in October 1988 in the small community of Derry, Maine with young teenager Bill Denbrough (Jaeden Lieberher) making a sailboat out of note paper and waxing it to make it waterproof, for his young seven year old brother Georgie (Jackson Robert Scott) to go and play with in the pouring rain. Georgie releases the boat into the gutter and it sails away at a rate faster than he can keep up, eventually washing down into a storm drain.

As young Georgie peers after his lost boat into the narrow drain inlet, he is startled by a man dressed as a clown who introduces himself as 'Pennywise, the Dancing Clown' (Bill Skarsgard). The clown states that the storm washed the circus, and him, down into the sewers, and he offers the young lad his boat back, saying that he should reach in to take it. As Georgie reaches in to the drain to retrieve his boat, his arm is bitten off at the shoulder by Pennywise. Falling backwards out of shock, and scrambling around in the pouring rain, Georgie is dragged backwards by his legs into the storm drain . . . never to be seen again, with his blood quickly being washed away by the torrents of rainwater.

Fast forward to June 1989 and its the last day of term at Derry High School. Bill and a few of his best mates Richie Tozier (Finn Wolfhard), Eddie Kaspbrak (Jack Dylan Grazer) and Stanley Uris (Wyatt Oleff) run into school bully Henry Bowers (Nicholas Hamilton) and his gang, who are intent on picking on the much younger lads and making their life a misery. At the same time Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis) is picked on for being the school slut and has a confrontation in the female toilets with another highly opinionated ringleader of a pack of girls. Recovering from this and exiting the school building she runs into Ben Hanscom (Jeremy Ray Taylor), a new kid at school, who is also bullied because of his weight problem, but he harbours a secret crush on Beverly. The pair chat for a while, she signs his year book, and they go their separate ways.

Later we see Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs) making a delivery to a local Butcher's shop. He has a close terrifying encounter with Pennywise before nearly getting mowed down by Henry Bowers in his car. Bill meanwhile has a theory that Georgie was washed down into Derry's intricate sewer system and would have washed out in an area known as The Barrens. He enlists the help of his mates to check out the exiting storm drain at The Barrens to look for signs of Georgie. Ben visits the school library even though it is now officially the Summer Holidays and studies up on the history of old Derry, learning of the towns mystery with unsolved murders, unexplained disappearances, and strange goings on that have been occurring for centuries. He is lured down into the library basement by a dancing red balloon gliding across the floor and has a close encounter too with Pennywise in the form of a rampaging badly burnt headless boy.

Later Ben runs into Henry Bowers gang, and narrowly escaping them by tumbling down a steep embankment he runs along a riverbed and ends up at The Barrens where Bill and his mates are investigating the storm drain exit. With Beverly's help they get first aid supplies to help clean up Ben from his ordeal at the hands of Bowers. The next day, the group spend swimming in a quarry lake, and afterward while relaxing in the sunshine they recount their experiences with the mysterious and menacing clown. Afterwards Eddie passes by an abandoned ramshackle old house on Neibolt Street, and comes face to face with the clown carrying a bunch of red balloons who then manifests itself into the rotting corpse of a leper who gives chase after him.

Stan later has a terrifying ordeal with the clown who assumes the identity of an animated painting of a disfigured woman that has always given him the creeps; and Beverly hears the distant voices of children calling up to her from the plug hole in her bathroom sink. Upon closer examination she is held fast by her own cut hair as it wraps around her head, her arms and her legs and steadily pulls her in towards the plug hole before an eruption of blood coats her from head to toe and the entire bathroom too. Later that night Bill is awakened by strange noises elsewhere in the house and is lured down into the basement where he confronts Georgie lurking in a corner . . . but it's not Georgie, it's Pennywise from whom he narrowly escapes back up the stairs.

Some weeks later 'The Losers Club', as the now gang of seven affectionately refer to themselves as, have a moment of clarity as they realise that they are all being besieged by the same horrific entity, who seems to feed off their own fears, insecurities and anxieties, and turns these against them. While in Bill's garage viewing photographic slides of old Derry superimposed over a map of current Derry, Ben announces that there is a 27 year pattern going back to the turn of the century of unexplained and mysterious occurrences in their town resulting in death, destruction and disappearances. The slideshow they are watching of the old and new town maps indicates that Derry's Well is the central hub from which the towns sewer systems branches out. That Well is located in the ramshackle abandoned old house on Neibolt Street, and it is this conduit that allows Pennywise to move about town quickly and unseen.

Bill, Richie and Eddie venture upto the Neibolt Street house while the others stand guard outside. Pennywise attempts to pick the three boys off one by one, by luring them into different parts of the house with varying visions. Eddie falls through a hole in the floor to a room below, fracturing his arm in the process. Pennywise emerges from a fridge, and is about to kill Eddie when he is impaled through the head by a metal spike courtesy of Beverly, causing the clown to make a hasty retreat down the Well, but not before slashing Ben in the stomach with his clawed hands.

Outside the house Eddie's over protective and over bearing mother arrives and quickly whisks him way, horrified by the boys antics. Richie, Stan and Mike elect to have no more to do with Bill and his plans to locate Georgie and thwart Pennywise, because its all too dangerous and its the Summer Holidays and they are supposed to be enjoying themselves. Later on, Beverly is abducted by Pennywise, after she knocks out her father for fear of being raped by him. Bill visits the house to find her unconscious father on the bathroom floor with blood oozing from his head, and deduces that Pennywise has Beverly. He quickly rallies The Losers to mount a search and rescue mission.

Back at the Neibolt Street house, The Losers gain entry down the Well and emerge in a labyrinth of sewer tunnels. Stan is separated from the others and Pennywise attacks, but is fended off when the others arrive just in time. They emerge into a huge cavernous underground cooling tower which is filled with what appears to be a mountain of rotting circus equipment, the clothes and personal belongings of Pennywise's victims going back centuries, and hovering mid way up the tower are the suspended floating corpses of missing children. They rescue Beverly from her state of Pennywise induced suspended animation, just as Georgie emerges saying to Bill that it's time to go home. Bill is at first taken in, but then realises that Georgie really is dead, and recognising the ruse shoots Georgie through the head with a captive bolt pistol brought along by Mike, temporarily on 'loan' from his Grandfathers sheep farm. The lifeless body of Georgie then transforms into Pennywise.

The group descend on the clown beating it with a baseball bat, sticks, metal rods and whatever they can find lying around. Pennywise overpowers them taking Bill hostage and offers to trade them Bill for sparing the lives of all the other Losers. Richie seemingly agrees and then turns the tables on Pennywise, which gives The Losers the opportunity to brutally attack the clown and free their friend. Pennywise is mortally wounded, and Bill states that they are no longer afraid of him, that he cannot turn their fears against them, and so he is powerless now against them. The clown backs into the lip of a deep pit and starts to dissolve before falling into oblivion. Bill discovers the yellow raincoat of his younger brother with his name etched on the inside and breaks down, with his friends all comforting him.

One month later when the dust has settled and a degree of normalcy has returned to Derry, The Losers gather and make a blood oath to return to Derry 27 years from now, if It comes back and terrorises the town, and that they will destroy it once and for all.

'It' reminded me to some degree of 'Stand By Me' and the recent popular Netflix series 'Stranger Things' with common themes running through them. This film has some genuine jump scares to keep the tension and the suspense ramped up, and equally some moments of levity with laugh out loud moments, largely delivered by the fast talking potty mouthed Richie Tozier. The young cast are well matched and deliver convincing characterisation, and Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise delivers on the maniacal menace with aplomb, although as the film progresses and we see more of The Dancing Clown, the more predictable he becomes and therefore less scary. At 135 minutes running time the film moves along at a good pace and maintains the attention with equal measure of frights and early teenage coming of age emotion. A solid horror offering that does not disappoint given the social media attention the early trailers garnered and the subsequent expectations. Bring on 'It - Chapter Two', which is set up nicely with a post credits audio teaser.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-