[Spoilerless Review] Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves movie

This past weekend, I took ActionMan to see the Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves movie. The previous one(s) were... unfulfilling. I had little expectations. The trailers looked interesting and of quality, I thought "this could have half a chance!"

Then the OGL situation... I mean really WotC? Did you wanted to tank the movie? (Yes).

I knew I wanted to go see the movie. I didn't want to boycott it, but instead, as a form of protest, I delayed my attendance until I could see it at our local second-chance cinema. You may say this is just arguing semantics, but it made me feel good and right.

Things I enjoyed in the movie:
- The form of the story: How the party comes together while the plot advances.
- The introduction: Quickly we get in the action, giving us the background of the story at a pretty fast pace.
- The characters: The main cast is definitely like many D&D parties I know and play with.
- The look: Things looked good. Neverwinter resembles the Neverwinter we see in games.
- The lore: It felt interesting and well-woven into the story. Elements of the red wizards are dropped at the moment we need them.
- "The Cameo": You know who I'm talking 'bout.
- The cast looked the part and were entertaining in their role.

Things I disliked
- The marketing: again instead of focusing on the good elements, they again went to score woke point with Twitter. Please stop doing that. 1- You can never please Twitter. 2- You piss off your paying fans. 3- It is NOT uniting.
- Okay I could nitpick a number of "the game is not like that" but the one thing that really irked me was that the bard had no abilities once combat started. Chris Pine's bard should've had some magic to something more than just be a scoundrel. Nitpicking. I enjoyed his portrayal.
- Another nitpick: no cleric? At no point do any of the heroes call for healing... A cleric could've served well. Don't want to have a healer, then have a war cleric or a shaman.

Okay, I really enjoyed this movie. Much more than I thought going in. Sure, I can go through a bunch of nitpicks, but I had a good time. I laughed. I worried. I anticipated.

In short, I was entertained and that was really all I wanted. They provided that to me at a time when most movies have me not bothering to go see them or wait until they come to "regular" TV.

I will give this movie a 4/5. It is not a great movie, but it did what I wanted: have someone tell of their D&D game and their characters for two hours. That and I liked it better than most 3s I have rated.