Weekend Watch: Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Amongst Thieves, A Thousand And One, Tetris
Fantasy fun, challenging parenthood and a strange-but-true game story
Image Credit: Paramount Pictures
Welcome to the latest edition of Weekend Watch, in which I recommend (or occasionally warn against) movies or TV shows I’ve been checking out. This week, Chris Pine assembles a team of thieves, Teyana Taylor faces parenthood and Taron Egerton fights to bring a game to the world. Follow James on Twitter: @jamwhite
If video game adaptations can have a moment, then surely tabletop role-playing gaming deserves the same chance? And when the result is as fresh and funny as Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves, the answer is a resounding yes.
Saddled for years by its connection to the lacklustre 2000 film (which inexplicably spawned two sequels, a TV movie and a straight-to-home entertainment entry), the iconic game is now headed back to cinemas with a big-budget version that is also big on laughs and big on heart to boot.
After years in development, a saving throw has finally been rolled by writer/directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, who together have so far brought the world the Vacation reboot and 2018’s excellent comedy crime thriller Game Night (they also share writing credits on films such as Spider-Man: Homecoming).
The pair assembled a winning cast, including Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, Hugh Grant, Chloe Coleman and Regé-Jean Page and set them loose on a hilarious adventure that resembles a Marvel movie welded onto a classic high fantasy adventure.
Pine, playing bard-turned-spy-turned-thief Edgin, is the charismatic core, a man comfortable with letting his Barbarian best pal Holga (Rodriguez) take on the battles, while he makes plans. While he has a slightly unfortunate, trope-heavy tragedy in his past, it doesn’t detract from his genuinely entertaining quest. Rodriguez matches him turn for turn, the pair unsaddled by the usual romantic connection and instead granted a friends-not-blood brother-sister vibe with all the banter that entails.
The pair is betrayed during an early robbery mission by con man Forge Fitzwilliam (Grant, playing the role to the hilt as though Paddington 2’s Phoenix Buchanan had been cast in his place), and land in prison.
Escaping their captivity, they recruit nervous wizard Simon (Smith, bringing real emotion to the nebbishy role) and stand-offish druid Doric (Lillis, who does a lot with a relatively limited role) to help them track down the magical doohickey they need to get their revenge and save Edgin’s daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman). Along the way, they also secure the help of the smoothly heroic Xenk (Page), who makes Edgin look like a schmuck in comparison and doesn’t get irony. File him under “perfectly understood the assignment” as he’s all flawless armour and noble speeches. And even though he’s only on screen for a relatively short time, he makes the most of it, proving a perfect foil for Pine and the rest.
In addition to the excellent ensemble, the directors also cleverly blend plenty of gaming (Water)deep cuts for those who have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the source material, married to an engaging story that entirely works for anyone whose awareness of it runs to the 1980s cartoon series or the many and varied references to it from all over popular culture.
It sometimes stumbles (one or two effects sequences don’t hold up) and doesn’t always entirely escape the standard “characters need magical X to complete mission Y” storyline, but its issues are few and far between. Any film that manages to channel the Monty Python team for a scene where our heroes interrogate a series of corpses to gather exposition is one worth recommending.
And if that dodgy previous dip into the Dungeons can warrant a sequel, this one should have you demanding to spend more time in the company of Edgin and co.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves is in UK and US cinemas now.
Image Credit: Focus Features
Comparisons to Barry Jenkins’ Oscar-winning Moonlight (a personal favourite for me) might seem unfair, but A.V. Rockwell’s feature debut impressively shrugs off any such need, forging its own path through the thorny issue of race and parenthood.
It helps that A Thousand And One has a very different story to tell, even as it exists in three different time periods the same way Jenkins’ film did. This time, though, we’re drawn through 1994, 2001 and 2005 as New York City changes in subtle ways around us.
Rockwell’s focus is on the unapologetic and free-spirited Inez (Teyana Taylor), who, fresh out of her latest stint in prison, kidnaps her six-year-old son Terry (Aaron Kingsley Adetola) from the foster care system. She moves him to Harlem and, holding onto their secret and each other, mother and son set out to reclaim their sense of home, identity, and stability.
In a film loaded with layered, realistic performances, it’s Taylor who captures our attention and keeps it in a vice grip whenever she’s on screen. Acting opposite three different actors playing her son (Aven Courtney and Josiah Cross portray him at 13 and 17 respectively) is no mean feat, and Taylor brings a winning combination of fire and vulnerability to a role that is already superbly written by Rockwell.
Yet it’s not entirely Taylor’s film, as Rockwell has also constructed a shifting, engrossing ensemble, where even the smallest roles feel like living people and not just random background characters.
I’m hopeful that the movie finds an audience and support, as it has more on its mind than simple entertainment.
A Thousand And One is in US cinemas now, and will in released in the UK on 21 April.
Image Credit: Apple TV+
While Dungeons & Dragons is pure fantasy and A Thousand And One looks at real-world issues through a gritty, realistic lens, Tetris could be described as stranger than fiction.
It’s the (mostly) true story of Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton), a Dutch-born, American- raised entrepreneur who, in the ‘80s found himself living in Japan with his family. A tech geek and games nerd long before those terms hit the mainstream, Rogers was constantly on the lookout for the video game that would change the world. If he saw it early enough — went the reasoning — he might be able to snatch up the rights for his failing company Bullet-Proof Software and become rich overnight.
So when Henk sees an early demonstration of Tetris at a Las Vegas gaming convention, he’s hooked and becomes convinced that it could be his ticket to riches. Which would be helpful, since he’s already gambled much of his family’s finances on other titles that haven’t paid off.
Yet when Henk thinks he’s secured the rights to ‘Tetris’ in Japan, he soon learns that he was quite wrong –– and that the Russian government is intent on keeping the profits for itself. Add to that a serious challenge from British media magnate Richard Maxwell (played by Roger Allam), and his scheming son Kevin (Anthony Boyle).
As directed by Filth and Stan & Ollie filmmaker Jon S. Baird (from Noah Pink’s script), Tetris spins a lively, breezy and occasionally farcical comedy thriller that still manages to convey the stakes. As Henk, Egerton deploys his considerable appeal to bring the chancer to life. Despite his usually sunny nature, Henk could come across as an arrogant chancer in the wrong hands, but Baird and his leading man imbue him with an everyman spirit, and you root for him to succeed.
Of course, given that Tetris ended up on Nintendo Gameboys in many countries, you’ll know the outcome, but the joy of Tetris as a film is having you wonder just how Henk and the game’s creator, Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov) managed to outwit KGB officials, sleazy rights merchants and shady, overprivileged business rivals.
Baird also brings a real sense of style to the film, some brutalist Aberdeen architecture playing the part of 1980s Russia and inventive use of 8-bit graphics for scene transitions (presenting Henk’s quest like a series of game levels) and, in one car chase scene, invading real life.
Tetris could be described as a more human take on a story like The Social Network, but it really is its own thing and falls into place effectively.
Tetris is on Apple TV+ in the US and UK now and on limited release in UK cinemas.