The franchise, after making so much and so much sagas (we were recently talking about Scream,Halloween, of Star Wars …) and as our knees tremble in the face of the imminent arrival of the last part of the Guardians of the Galaxy or even of the last Indiana Jones (tabled by James Mangold on the Croisette), here's how Hollywood takes over the role play and puts the grapple on D&D to produce: Donjons & Dragons, The Honor of Thieves.
Fear the worst
Mythical geekery that can be found, among other things, in E.T. or more recently in Stranger Things, the first images of the trailer could cause the worst to fear. Fan heavy duty, pick-up special effects, hair-driven story and this humor that neutralizes everything, as in so many MCU productions. Yet we still had some signs of hope...
Lights of hope
The first glimmer of hope, the presence of the duo John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein at the helm: not necessarily very identified, they were the directors of Game Night in 2018. The comedy slash thriller staged Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams And a poor (but very sweet) Westie. A hell of a well-run film, with a fair balance between humour and suspense, which makes its hour and a half pass without any boredom and with a real mastery of its tempo.
Second glimmer of hope? The refusal of all digital. Certainly, D&D will require the use of an incalculable number of special effects, but the duo of directors has chosen to keep a lot of practical effects. And it can be seen on the screen and gives a retro side, but extremely tangible to the feature film (see video below). A choice that is all the wiser as a true and exciting bestiary is deployed. But where do all these bugs come from?
Influence(s)
No matter what one thinks of the films in question, many recent films show little inventiveness about the constitution of their creatures. Far away from Avatar 2 where all animals appear to be only well-identified terrestrial animal hybrids, D&D offers a tricky bestiary: the awesome obese dragon, the complete WTF hibours, the hilarious skeletons of warriors, the brain dogs that attack the most sharpened spirits, etc. And speaking of the latter, one must evoke a well-known source of inspiration for this feature: Beksiński.
Indeed, the feature film D&D is ultra referenced... The winks of the eye Lord of the Rings are obvious (Jackson seems to have forever imposed his vision on filming fantasy in cinema), those with saga Harry Potter also; But if there is an artist who sweats throughout the film, but whose imagery is relatively little taken up in the current blockbusters, it is Zdzisław Beksiński. The Polish tortured painter and his nightmare universe accords relatively poorly with mainstream films, and yet D&D manages to draw real surrealist inspirations. We talked about brain dogs that seem straight from his work (image above), but also about the construction of certain landscapes, such as those before his encounter with the obese dragon.
Conclusion
So let's not be wrong, D&D is far from the clarity of the universe of Beksiński. By his humor (often well-found), his pop side and a little too much restraint on the gore effects (despite his violence, not a drop of blood, or almost, will be shed), Dongeons & Dragons movie version is definitely too wise. One could also complain about a few scripting springs too obvious and some lengths, although the multiple climax (serious!) of the last third will leave the spectator little respite. Anyway, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor of Thieves, despite its imperfections, is a nice surprise as we would like to see more in the selection of the current blockbusters !
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