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More than just a reboot, this new chapter in the role-playing game franchise is a wonderful piece of world-buildingWell, this is refreshing. Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves is that vanishingly rare entity – a riotously entertaining family-friendly film that hasn’t been painfully squeezed out of a comic-book franchise like the last, forlorn dregs of toothpaste from a long-dead tube. Admittedly, this isn’t the first film to be based on the enduringly popular fantasy role-playing game – Jeremy Irons starred in a critically reviled version in 2000; a made-for-TV sequel and direct-to-DVD third instalment followed. But Honour Among Thieves is more than a reboot – it’s a fleshed-out, multidimensional piece of world-building, with immediately likable characters, plenty of face-crunching, axe-based fight choreography and a running joke about potatoes.Kudos to John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, who co-wrote and co-directed the picture. As a creative partnership, they have experience in reboots – they co-wrote Spider-Man: Homecoming – and board games, having co-directed the comedy thriller Game Night. With this picture, they strike a satisfying balance between character and action, and ensure that the digital effects are in service of the story, rather than the other way around. Continue reading...