Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)

Director: Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley

Cast: Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Sophia Lillis, Hugh Grant

Have I Seen it Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: When I watched the movie it was the weekend. As I type this, it is… Tuesday…? and I’m in day… is it three…? of a massive power outage. I’m typing this while at the first opportunity I had to charge my devices while an episode of Frasier plays on my phone and I have ice in my glass. I am watching an episode of Typing is strange. Remembering movies are strange. How do they work again? How does any of this work again? This will teach me to delay a review for a day or more.

I see many of you on Twitter and elsewhere complaining about/celebrating the failure of The Flash (2023). I see many of you out there there talking about movies you’re watching, movies you’re dreading, movies you’re anticipating, and the

Like, I just like Frasier and ice in my glass. Is that too much to ask?

Ahem.

I now resume this review several days later. The power has been back on for a few days, and while I’m fairly certain not all of me came back from the great blackout of 2023, I am also certain that whatever the preceding paragraphs were, they weren’t much of a way to proceed with a review.

Assuming that the parts of me that are still here are the ones that watched the movie, it ended up providing more than what it promised. Funny and charming in equal measure, it is easily more fun than any single D+D session I’ve ever wandered into.

What’s the movie’s big mistake, ultimately? Had they not tied the whole affair to the brand, this thing could have become a very moderate hit. You, the one reading this review, should give it a look regardless of your thoughts on the game that wrought it.

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

Director: Patty Jenkins

Cast: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal

Have I Seen it Before: How would one?

Did I Like It: No review of the film would be complete without spending a moment on its distribution. For a major release, the idea of going simultaneously on streaming and in theaters is certainly unusual. The reasons are well-founded, as are the objections of the movie theater industry.

That all being said, it’s a different animal to watch a movie like this from the couch. In a theater, all that exists is you and the movie, and maybe some popcorn*. You don’t even talk to the people you came with, unless you’re some kind of sociopath. At home, I’m tempted to work on some writing, or thumb through a book or play a game of chess on the phone. At one point I grabbed an orange, peeled it, and then spent several minutes of the runtime debating whether I should get up to throw away the peel.

It’s a different thing. I sure would like it if people got serious about the everything of the current era and the vaccines keep (or truly start) a comin’ so that I might sit in a movie theater once again before I die.

It seems like a lot of my review descend into a similar rant these days. Anyway.

I came to the film a full week after its premiere, and had to work extra hard to not let the somewhat negative word-of-mouth clutter or prejudice my thoughts.

And I think I mostly succeeded.

I hesitate to make some kind of prediction with my first review of 2021, but I think that despite the grumbling, this one will age better than the average superhero film. 

Yes, it doesn’t really feel like a superhero film for much of its runtime. If you cut out all of the scenes were Diana (Gadot) is in full Wonder Woman regalia doing Wonder Woman things, you’d still have a movie that feels about twenty minutes too long. I can see where people feel like they might have been sold a false bill of goods, especially in a year when the last new superhero film we had was Birds of Prey (2020) back in February.

Other parts of it feel like a less-frantic remix of some of the same themes examined in Batman Returns (1992), which would automatically elevate the film’s standing in my view. 

And where that previous film was a fun-house mirror reflection of that earlier film, this film is so quintessentially of its time that it will be hard to completely dismiss in the years to come. The promises of shallow wish-fulfillment by Maxwell Lord (Pascal) will immediately sound familiar, and after all of the time we’ve had, the way Diana unravels those plans feel more satisfying than they have any right to. In a few years, the film may feel quaint, but I’m really looking forward to that. 

* Please, don’t at me with Raisinets. I’m aware of them, and they are not a proper movie snack. I will not be taking questions at this time.