‘Dungeons & Dragons’ now on the big screen

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.