by Arnold Wayne Jones

There are names that, when I see them in the opening credits of a movie, instantly make me cringe, or at least give pause: “Directed by Michael Bay.” “Screenplay by Joe Eszterhaus.” “Casting supervised by Harvey Weinstein.” High on that list? “Based upon the property by Hasbro.” Eckk. I know people flock to the Transformers movies, but they are noisy nonsense in a visual dungheap of meaningless VFX; Battleship, Ouija, Jen & the Holograms, My Little Pony? Unwatchable. I’m not even a fan of the strained, unfunny cult classic Clue (yeah, well, sue me). Movies based on games?! When has that ever worked?

But there were two things that lured me into screening of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, despite its pedigree: First, the humane and intrigue dramatic success of The Last of Us on HBO, which showed video games could be the source of filmic creativity; and the second was its appealing trailer, which had a hip, subversive energy. I’d take a risk.

Only it didn’t turn out to be a risk at all. D&D: HAT is one of the most disarmingly enjoyable romps I’ve had in a theater in a while. It’s everything that the trailer promised and more: Funny, clever, exciting and even a little sexy.

One serious upside – which, I dunno, may be a downside for devotees of the game – is that it requires zero familiarity with its source material in order to get caught up in the story. Are the cinematic characters pulled from the game? Are locations celebrated and revisited? I have no clue, and don’t care. It stands on its own for entertainment.

The plot is fairly familiar: Two antiheroes, Edgin (Chris Pine) and Holga (Michelle Rodriguez) are betrayed, captured, imprisoned, manage to escape, and go on a quest to achieve their original goal, only with more at stake. Along the way, they team up with lame sorcerer Simon (Justice Smith), shapeshifting druid Doric (Sophia Lillis) and dreamy Paladin Xenk (Rege-Jean Page). They battle the undead, master magic amulets, plan heists and best the fattest dragon in the world.

Yeah, a fat dragon. Who has flame-performance anxiety. And the villain’s wisecracks are more Noel Coward than Cowardly Lion. And did I mention dreamy Rege-Jean Page? (I might come back to him again.)

The inspiration for D&D seems less Game of Thrones or Conan or Lord of the Rings and more Princess Bride: sassy, buoyant, clever and wondrous without aiming for outright awe. The visual effects are excellent, but not the entire meal; the action sequences have the balletic humor of Jackie Chan; the plotting is smart and unexpected. For instance, when we first meet Edgin and Holga, he’s knitting and she’s beating the crap out of an ogre. Indeed, the main action set pieces all feature the women. It’s as if Everything Everywhere All At Once had big-budget backing.

Hugh Grant plays a charmingly evil Blofeld-like baddy, and Page (sigh!) plays it entirely straight as a sincere Westley-ish swashbuckler. Even Bradley Cooper shows up in a cameo as a milquetoast farmer. Co-writers and -directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein cast down the gauntlet to jokey actioners like Guardians of the Galaxy … and they win with an off-hand queer subtext (including the presences of Rodriguez and Smith) that delivers a tartness. This could be the start of a new Hasbromance.

Opens in theaters March 31.

The Wizard of A-Has: Dungeons & Dragons Breaks the Hasbro Curse Review