Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves review – Game for a laugh

It’s been 23 years since Hollywood last took a stab at adapting Dungeons & Dragons, the swords and sorcery role-playing game much beloved by teenage geeks. That film was a cheap, joyless affair which didn’t even have the decency to be amusingly terrible. But a lot has happened in the intervening years.

In 2000, D&D (as weekend wizards affectionately call it and yes, I was one of them) was a sitcom gag aimed at the socially inept. But, largely thanks to heroes from TV series Stranger Things, the game has magicked its way into the mainstream. Now Hollywood has rolled the 20-sided dice with a star-studded fantasy blockbuster.

There are in-jokes for those in the know but great casting, zippy action scenes and wryly amusing dialogue make Honour Among Thieves a fun adventure for all the family.

A very likeable Chris Pine plays Edgin, a thieving, wise-cracking bard languishing in a prison cell with his grumpy barbarian best pal Holga (Michelle Rodriguez).

After an amusing prison break, the pair recruit fellow misfits for a new adventure.

Their smarmy former partner-in-crime Forge (Hugh Grant) has the magical amulet that can bring Edgin’s wife back from the dead. He also has Edgin’s teenage daughter (Chloe Coleman), an evil sorceress sidekick (Daisy Head), and a stash of ill-gotten gains.

After our heroes sign up a shape-shifting druid (Sophia Lillis), an insecure wizard (Justice Smith), and a humourless paladin (Regé-Jean Page), the film turns into a heist movie. It could have been funnier but the special effects are slick, the robbery is exciting and the ending heart-warming.

For six decades, D&D has helped the spotty, the awkward and the romantically challenged find their tribe.

This big-hearted fantasy channels some of that underdog spirit.

• Dungeons & Dragons: Honour among thieves, Cert12A, in cinemas now