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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

‘Dungeons & Dragons’ now on the big screen

Dan Webster

Above: Chris Pine (center) leads a band of players in "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves." (Photo/Paramount Pictures)

If you never played Dungeons & Dragons, what Wikipedia describes as a “fantasy tabletop role-playing game,” then you may not understand the slightest thing about what is likely to be Friday’s most popular movie opening.

“Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” is based on an original screenplay, with three different writers given credit – Michael Grillo, Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley – with Goldstein and Daley hired to direct.

In an interview with the online magazine Den of Geek, Goldstein credited every movie from “Princess Bride” to “The Lord of the Rings” as an influence.

“We’re kind of straddling the two worlds,” he said. “Ours is a movie that doesn’t take itself with great seriousness, but it’s never a spoof. It honors the world of D&D and celebrates it, but hopefully, it gives the audience an engaging and fun ride.”

Their screenplay has Chris Pine leading a band of characters, each with specific powers, in a quest to retrieve a powerful tablet from a treacherous lord. Also starring are Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page and Hugh Grant.

Owen Gleiberman of Variety sums up the largely positive critical reactions to the film this way: “It’s at once cheesy and charming, synthetic and spectacular, cozily derivative and rambunctiously inventive, a processed piece of junk-culture joy that, by the end, may bring a tear to your eye.”

In other words, it should appeal to the adolescent game-player in all of us.