Movie reviews: 'Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves' is a breath of fresh fantasy air
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DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES: 4 STARS
You don't have to know or understand the role-playing game D&D to get the movie "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves." Those who know that the acronym BBEG stands for Big Bad Evil Guy (or Gal) or that Monty Hall doesn't refer to the game show host, but to a type of campaign based on accumulating as much wealth/magic items as possible, will have a better chance at deciphering the in-jokes and Easter eggs, but for non-players, it still works as a fantasy action-comedy, complete with sorcerers, trolls and dragons.
The story begins with impish single father Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine) and barbarian Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez), making a daring escape from prison. They wound up behind bars when their planned robbery to steal the Tablet of Reawakening, an artefact with the power to resurrect the dead, went sideways. Their cohorts, Edgin's daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman), conman Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant), Sofina (Daisy Head) and sorcerer Simon Aumar (Justice Smith), escaped justice, disappearing into the wind.
Upon their "release" they discover that Fitzwilliam double-crossed them, has taken custody of Kira and is now living the high life as the wealthy Lord of Neverwinter. When it becomes clear Fitzwilliam is no longer an ally, Edgin and Holga go on a quest to find the Tablet of Reawakening, resurrect Edgin's dead wife, bring Kira back to the family and settle a score with Fitzwilliam.
But first they must find the Enchanted Helmut, a sideline aided by Sophia Lillis as Doric, a tiefling druid and shapeshifter and the heroic Xenk Yendar (Regé-Jean Page).
There's more, like Red Wizards and necromancy and talking corpses, but for all the fantasy on board the movie, this is really a very earth-bound story of friendship and family. With dragons and magic.
What could have been another dull game adaption transcends the nasty reputation left behind by bombs that were not nearly as fun as the games that inspired them, like "Battleship" and "Candy Land: The Great Lollipop Adventure."
Co-directors Jonathan M. Goldstein and John Francis Daley roll their twenty-sided dice (look it up) that audiences will value a fantasy story that uses humour as the backbone of the movie, the same way the "Lord of the Rings" flicks used allegories on the human condition to fuel theirs.
Luckily, mostly thanks to Pine's nimble touch, it works really well. His performance sets a lighthearted tone followed by fun work from Rodriguez et al. Page also impresses as a handsome hero who feels like a combo of Dudley Do-Right and Errol Flynn.
We are so used to serious, heavy fantasy that the rambunctious "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves" feels like a breath of fresh air. It is old-fashioned; an old-school action adventure that aims to entertain above all else. It doesn't take itself seriously — although it is respectful to the world that inspired it — but does handle the action scenes, the world building, the characters, and the story with care.
SPINNING GOLD: 3 ½ STARS
Chances are, if you came of age in the 1970s, you helped make Casablanca Records the most successful independent record label of all time. With artists like Donna Summer, Parliament, Gladys Knight, the Isley Brothers, the Village People, Bill Withers and KISS on the roster, founder Neil Bogart sold millions of records and helped define the sound of the 1970s.
"Spinning Gold," a new biopic now playing in theatres, written, produced and directed by Bogart's eldest son Tim, is the story of how it happened. Kind of.
"If what you're after is the truth," Bogart says, "and not just what happened, but how it happened, then you are just going to have to believe all of it, because every single bit of it is true. Even the parts that weren't."
The story of Casablanca Records begins in Los Angeles, 1974. In the late 1960s the former singer and one-hit-wonder Bogart was a successful music executive. His ear for talent accelerated the rise of bubblegum pop, but it was a shock rock band from New York City, with face paint and futuristic stage outfits, that inspired Bogart to start his own label.
Refusing to ever take no for an answer, even after a disastrous label launch featuring KISS, whose pyrotechnics set off the sprinklers, leaving all the music biz big shots in attendance soaked and unimpressed, Bogart took risks no other executive could. Or would.
Flashbacks to his youth detail how the son of a poor Brooklyn postman rose to become a record industry mover-and-shaker. A charming combo of talent and nerve, with a healthy (and occasionally unhealthy) disregard for money, he cut a path through popular culture, following his personal motto: "Why head for the mountaintop when you're reaching for the sky?"
A kind of "What Makes Sammy Run" set in the music business, "Spinning Gold" is a fast-paced portrait of an old-school show business mogul — a high school drop-out who gambled as big as he dreamed. It is the stuff of dreams and, as such, plays like a kind of fantasy, with Bogart cast as a rock 'n roll fairy godfather. As played with great energy by Broadway star Jeremy Jordan, he grants people's wishes and his belief in his own ability to cast a spell over artists and executives alike, is almost supernatural. "We were in the business of making dreams come true," he says.
It all feels heightened, like a look at the era through a telescope, enlarged to the point where the image is so big it doesn't feel real anymore. But, unlike other music biopics — think "Bohemian Rhapsody" for instance — "Spinning Gold" has a meta self-awareness, and even breaks the fourth wall to acknowledge, "This never happened!" It's a fun stylistic choice, but later, the fictional hagiographic elements are tempered by the drugs, money issues and organized crime that enter the story midway through and give the movie a slightly grittier feel.
"Spinning Gold" relies too heavily on voice over—sometimes it feels like there's more VO than actual dialogue — but, like the man and the music it is based on, the movie is unapologetically large 'n loud in its need to entertain the audience and it mostly works with an appealing combo of performances and lots of ear-wormy music.
Most of all, as a portrait of a more free-wheeling time — "I'm not saying it wasn't sex, drugs and rock and roll, because it was," Bogart says. "But it was sex before it was deadly."
"Spinning Gold" succeeds not because it gets the details exactly right but because it captures the spirit of a time in the music industry when it was run by dreamers who had passion for the music, not MBA diplomas hanging on the wall.
TETRIS: 3 STARS
The addictive puzzle video game "Tetris," created by Soviet software engineer Alexey Pajitnov, couldn’t be simpler. Stack differently shaped pieces to form a whole and win points.
The story behind its success isn't.
A new movie starring Taron Egerton and now playing on Apple TV+, tells the story of how Dutch video game designer Henk Rogers fit the differently shaped pieces of international intrigue and video game creation together to secure the intellectual property rights to the popular game.
"The Soviet Union has worldwide rights," says Rogers. "Nothing gets out easily."
And how. In what is essentially a big business ticking clock story, Egerton is Rogers, an aggressive entrepreneur who discovers an early version of the simple game at the Consumer Electronics Show in the mid-1980s. An early adopter of video game technology, Rogers knows Tetris can be a hit.
"It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen," he says. "I played for five minutes, and I still see falling blocks in my dreams. It is poetry. It is the perfect game."
Developed by a Russian government software engineer Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov) in 1984, the game was an underground hit in the U.S.S.R., and starting to attract attention from other big players. The underdog Rogers finds himself up against Nintendo, media mogul Robert Maxwell (Roger Allam) and the Russian government.
"You want to play with the big boys?" threatens Maxwell. "This is how the world works."
"Tetris" is a convoluted tale of how Rogers navigates dubious agreements, business backstabbing and the very real threat of Russian prison, to secure the rights to the game and a future for his family. Unlike the game, the movie's pieces don't fit together easily. Part business story, part spy thriller, it piles a great deal of information into every scene, beginning with an unloading of exposition off the top that sets the scene, but may try the patience.
Once past the initial mound of info, screenwriter Noah Pink keeps up the pace, piling double-crosses on top of political scheming on top of jet setting skullduggery. It zips along at the speed of level 10 gameplay, and while it is sometimes hard to keep track of who is zooming who, Pink keeps it fairly linear, mostly focusing on how the various deals affect Rogers. Told from this point of view, the complicated story of contract law and how the negotiations for a video game became a Cold War concern is marginally easier to follow.
At the centre of it all is the elaborately mustachioed Egerton. As Rogers he brings an energizer bunny approach to the entrepreneur's unrelenting belief in the game and himself. As the story gets bigger and bigger — Henk against the world — it is Egerton that provides the human element, particularly in his friendship with Pajitnov. The surrounding performances are rather broad, but Egerton keeps it real.
Although it does feature 8-bit animation, "Tetris" isn’t a video game movie. Instead, it is a John Le Carre Lite political thriller, which could have used some of the simplicity of the game whose story it tells.
SPACE ODDITY: 2 ½ STARS
"Space Oddity," a new overstuffed feature directed by actor Kyra Sedgwick and now playing on VOD, flits around between space travel, trauma, ecology, family dynamics, and romance without ever settling on any one of them.
When we meet the McAllister family, Rhode Island flower farmers Jeff (Kevin Bacon) and Jane (Carrie Preston), daughter Liz (Madeline Brewer) and son Alex (Kyle Allen), they are dealing with great trauma. The death of their middle son has left the parents and sister lost, throwing themselves into work to cope with their loss.
Alex, however, has an out-of-this-world plan to escape his pain. He joins Mission to Mars, a private company — think Bezos and Musk — with plans to colonize Mars. It's not a one-way trip either. Earth is dying, Alex says, so why hang around?
His family goes along with his pipe dream until he gets serious, and applies for insurance to help finance the journey. At the insurance office, however, he meets Daisy (Alexandra Shipp), a broker who just might give the rocket man a reason to come down to Earth.
The subject of space travel is the method by which "Space Oddity" conveys its real message, about the state of our planet and what needs to be done to save our environment, but the addition of family drama and romance makes it feel like it is madly running off in several directions all at once.
It has the feel of an after school special. The lead, Alex, isn't a teenager, but he behaves like one, and Allen's wishy-washy performance doesn't do much to hold our interest at the centre of the film. He isn't aided by a script that telegraphs every plot twist in advance. If the film's journey had been more interesting, the predictable destination wouldn't be as bland.
"Space Oddity" simply bites off more than it can chew. The environmental messages are heavy-handed with no new ideas and, as a study of grief, it is far too lightweight.
A man accused of arson in a January Old Strathcona apartment fire is expected to be charged with manslaughter after a body was discovered in the burned building late last month.
According to an X post by the Transportation Security Administration, officers at the Miami International Airport found the small bag of snakes hidden in a passenger's trousers on April 26 at a checkpoint.
Russia has put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on its wanted list, Russian state media reported Saturday, citing the interior ministry’s database.
A candidate for Chancellor Olaf Scholz's center-left party in next month's election for the European Parliament was beaten up and seriously injured while campaigning in an eastern city, the party said Saturday.
A Chinese truck driver was praised in local media Saturday for parking his vehicle across a highway and preventing more cars from tumbling down a slope after a section of the road in the country's mountainous south collapsed and killed at least 48 people.
Ontario Provincial Police say two people were killed after a car and a transport truck collided in the westbound lanes of Highway 417 near Limoges, Ont. on Tuesday afternoon.
A man accused of arson in a January Old Strathcona apartment fire is expected to be charged with manslaughter after a body was discovered in the burned building late last month.
Models in uniquely designed red dresses are taking to the runway in British Columbia this weekend to make a powerful fashion statement about missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people.
Quebec provincial police handed out hundreds of fines to Hells Angels members and other supporting motorcycle clubs who met for their 'first run' in a small town near Sherbrooke, Que.
The jury deciding the fate of a man responsible for a fatal firebombing in Sudbury found him guilty of three counts of first-degree murder Friday afternoon.
According to an X post by the Transportation Security Administration, officers at the Miami International Airport found the small bag of snakes hidden in a passenger's trousers on April 26 at a checkpoint.
Mexican authorities said Friday that three bodies were recovered in an area of Baja California near where two Australians and an American went missing last weekend during an apparent camping and surfing trip.
A candidate for Chancellor Olaf Scholz's center-left party in next month's election for the European Parliament was beaten up and seriously injured while campaigning in an eastern city, the party said Saturday.
The United Nations food agency warned Sudan's warring parties Friday that there is a serious risk of widespread starvation and death in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan if they don't allow humanitarian aid into the vast western region.
Crucial witnesses took the stand in the second week of testimony in Donald Trump's hush money trial, including a California lawyer who negotiated deals at the center of the case and a longtime adviser to the former president.
Models in uniquely designed red dresses are taking to the runway in British Columbia this weekend to make a powerful fashion statement about missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people.
Quebec Premier François Legault reiterated that the pro-Palestinian encampment at McGill University must be dismantled while police remain 'on the lookout for new developments.'
The erstwhile group of senators and MPs studying the federal government's invocation of the Emergencies Act over the "Freedom Convoy" was supposed to present its findings in December. December of 2022, that is.
A U.S. farmworker who caught bird flu after working with dairy cattle in Texas appears to be the first known case of mammal-to-human transmission of the virus, a new study shows.
Black youth in Canada face multiple barriers in getting access to mental health services — and health-care providers can make the situation more difficult, experts say.
It’s the first flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule with a crew on board, a pair of NASA pilots who will check out the spacecraft during the test drive and a weeklong stay at the space station.
Google's preeminence as an internet search engine is an illegal monopoly propped up by more than US$20 billion spent each year by the tech giant to lock out competition, U.S. Justice Department lawyers argued at the closings of a high-stakes antitrust lawsuit.
Many species of animals form social groups and behave collectively: An elephant herd follows its matriarch, flocking birds fly in unison, humans gather at concert events. Even humble fruit flies organize themselves into regularly spaced clusters, researchers have found.
The adorable trio of child actors from the 1993 classic comedy 'Mrs. Doubtfire,' which starred the late and great Robin Williams, are all grown up and looking back on their seminal time together.
Drew Carey took over as host of 'The Price Is Right' and hopes he’s there for life. 'I'm not going anywhere,' he told 'Entertainment Tonight' of the job he took over from longtime host Bob Barker in 2007.
TD Bank Group could be hit with more severe penalties than previously expected, says a banking analyst after a report that the investigation it faces in the U.S. is tied to laundering illicit fentanyl profits.
Ontario is set to clamp down on bad employers with big fines. Labour Minister David Piccini says his government will introduce legislation next week that will see fines increased for violations of the Employment Standards Act.
Italy's Ministry of Health has banned the popular wellness trend of "puppy yoga" amid concerns that the puppies used in the practice could be exploited and mistreated.
Pius Suter scored with 1:39 left and the Vancouver Canucks advanced to the second round of the NHL playoffs with a 1-0 victory over the Nashville Predators on Friday night in Game 6.
Drivers in Saskatchewan will now lose their licence for a week and their vehicle for a month if they are caught committing certain high-speed and dangerous offences on the road.
Rolls-Royce is vastly expanding its factory in Chichester, England. The BMW subsidiary is adding five new buildings with construction planned to start next year.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Models in uniquely designed red dresses are taking to the runway in British Columbia this weekend to make a powerful fashion statement about missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people.
Pius Suter scored with 1:39 left and the Vancouver Canucks advanced to the second round of the NHL playoffs with a 1-0 victory over the Nashville Predators on Friday night in Game 6.
A 60-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman killed in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 earlier this week have been identified by the Consulate General of India in Toronto.
Peel police are investigating after receiving more than a dozen complaints about damage to vehicles on a residential street in Malton early Saturday morning.
The erstwhile group of senators and MPs studying the federal government's invocation of the Emergencies Act over the "Freedom Convoy" was supposed to present its findings in December. December of 2022, that is.
Ottawa Fire Services says crews battled a fire that broke out in a bedroom in the same highrise that displaced hundreds of residents and sent three people to hospital in critical condition Thursday morning.
The province has been pushing drivers to make the switch to electric vehicles (EVs) but it appears Quebecers aren't buying in. The latest numbers from the SAAQ show that the number of gas-powered vehicles hit a record high in 2023.
Quebec provincial police handed out hundreds of fines to Hells Angels members and other supporting motorcycle clubs who met for their 'first run' in a small town near Sherbrooke, Que.
The Edmonton Oilers will face the Vancouver Canucks in the second round of the National Hockey League post-season after Vancouver advanced with a 1-0 win over the Nashville Predators in Game 6 Friday, winning the best-of-seven opening-round series 4-2.
The erstwhile group of senators and MPs studying the federal government's invocation of the Emergencies Act over the "Freedom Convoy" was supposed to present its findings in December. December of 2022, that is.
A man accused of arson in a January Old Strathcona apartment fire is expected to be charged with manslaughter after a body was discovered in the burned building late last month.
An initiative called the Mandatory Alcohol Screening (MAS) program is designed to cut down on the number of drunk drivers on the road in the Halifax area.
Fishery officers seized nearly 30 kilograms of elvers at a Yarmouth County, N.S., holding facility on Wednesday, arresting three people in the process.
A Manitoba man who pleaded guilty to keeping the funds raised from an ice-fishing fundraiser for the Children's Hospital Foundation of Manitoba has been handed a sentence of 18 months house arrest.
The North Central Family Centre (NCFC) has launched a capital campaign to help aid in the completion of a major project they are in the midst of building.
More than 100 teachers at the Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) are learning they have been declared surplus will likely be out of a job as of Aug. 12.
The WHL Eastern Conference Final between the Saskatoon Blades and Moose Jaw Warriors has been full of see-saw momentum shifts, heart-stopping moments, and overtime heroes. Game 5 had all of the above.
The Major Crime Section of the Saskatoon Police Service has taken over the investigation into the death of a 30-year-old man, marking the city’s 9th homicide in 2024.
The jury deciding the fate of a man responsible for a fatal firebombing in Sudbury found him guilty of three counts of first-degree murder Friday afternoon.
A 60-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman killed in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 earlier this week have been identified by the Consulate General of India in Toronto.
Models in uniquely designed red dresses are taking to the runway in British Columbia this weekend to make a powerful fashion statement about missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people.
Pius Suter scored with 1:39 left and the Vancouver Canucks advanced to the second round of the NHL playoffs with a 1-0 victory over the Nashville Predators on Friday night in Game 6.
Models in uniquely designed red dresses are taking to the runway in British Columbia this weekend to make a powerful fashion statement about missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
The bell at Erle Rivers High School in Milk River, Alta., will ring for the last time on June 26, as the 114-year-old school is scheduled to be torn down to make way for a new K-12 school.
The de-rostering of thousands of patients at the Group Health Centre in Sault Ste. Marie was the centre of attention at a town hall Friday organized by the Algoma chapter of the Ontario Health Coalition.
Phase 1 of the reconstruction of Queen Street in downtown Sault Ste. Marie is getting underway, although it will be scaled down from the original plan.
Richard Martin is spending this year's fishing season on land after he says a Royal Newfoundland Constabulary officer broke his left leg in three places during a protest last month that shut down the provincial legislature.