Review by C.J. Bunce
This is a big week for Dungeons & Dragons, with new trailers, posters, and a prequel comic leading up to the premiere of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves in theaters at the end of this month. Hasbro has had some big moneymakers with movies based on its games and toys. The biggest belongs to the billion-dollar Transformers franchise with G.I. Joe a ways behind, and Battleship, Power Rangers, My Little Pony, and Clue also in the mix. How do you think a new D&D movie will fare? Chris Pine looks to be bringing his signature humor and his familiar rule-breaking hero to his next big role as Edgin the Bard.
Carrying on a theme from yesterday’s preview of Jamie Lee Curtis’s Mother Nature, some of the best big franchise movies of the past two decades have begun their stories in graphic novel form. The very best of these we’ve seen was the prequel to J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movie from 2009, called Star Trek: Countdown (reviewed here). With the long-awaited Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves arriving in theaters at the end of this month, anyone who wants to get a jump on the film can get a first look at the characters portrayed by Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Hugh Grant, Sophia Lillis, Justice Smith, Daisy Head, Chloe Coleman, and Regé-Jean Page this week in the 100-page graphic novel from IDW Publishing, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: The Feast of the Moon.
Get a first look at the characters and get a dose of some of the many creatures in the movie in two new trailers below, along with a final big trailer for the movie, a look inside the prequel comic, and new character posters.
The prequel comic actually contains two fantasy tales: “The Feast of the Moon” by Jeremy Lambert with art by Eduardo Ferigato, Paulo Santos, and Patricio Delpeche, and “Xenk and the Helmet of Disjunction” by Ellen Boener with art by Guillermo Sanna and Mattia Iacono. The key takeaway from the prequel is that the merry band of thieves audiences will meet in the movie have been traveling together for a long time. And the longer you’ve played D&D, the more familiar all the Easter eggs (dragon eggs?) will be in the movie–and there’s a lot.
The first story finds the players, er, the crew taking on a mission straight out of Seven Samurai or The Magnificent Seven, and the look is all “uproarious adventure” in the style of Army of Darkness. Chris Pine’s character Edgin has a daughter named Kira, and readers will see how Edgin re-formed an acquaintance with Michelle Rodriguez’s barbarian Holga. The feel is of a group exploring something like the burgh of Lake-town in The Hobbit.
The second story introduces Regé-Jean Page’s Paladin character Xenk. Xenk is a grand high-fantasy hero of the Sleeping Beauty Prince Phillip variety, who gets duped out of protecting an important silver helmet by a couple of gnome girls. The humor is key to both of these stories, the kind of good-natured fun that will hopefully be reflected in the movie. Take a look at the first pages of the movie prequel Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: The Feast of the Moon:
The trailer highlights some impressive fantasy imagery, and you meet some new characters and creatures in two other previews:
And here are the character posters, fresh off the press (so new you can almost smell the ink):
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is coming to theaters March 31, 2023, with a likely follow-up on Paramount+ a few weeks later. Order your copy of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: The Feast of the Moon now at Elite Comics, your local comic shop, or here at Amazon.
