Action Movie Bonanza - Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and The Man from U.N.C.L.E - Review

Today I will be discussing two recent action films as this is one of my favourite genres to explore and escape reality while being entertained with big set pieces and riveting sequences. These two films were good but I did not love either one and I will explain why below.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)

Fun medieval fantasy film that felt like a combination of Warcraft and Jumanji. Chris Pine has infinite charisma and the energy he brought to this film was contagiously fun. Michelle Rodriguez was surprisingly great here too.

The movie works best as a fun action film as some of the heavier moments toward the end fell a bit flat and were hard to take serious given the flippant style of much of the movie. Still, a decent enough watch especially if this genre is something you enjoy which I do and wish there were more movies of this kind made each year.

I wanted to mention that I really appreciated the great CGI and dynamic cinematography to capture those bigger moments in the film which gave the movie that big blockbuster feel. If this movie had a more satisfying conclusion rather than simply going with good beats evil it could have been great. I also wanted to say how much I am enjoying the turn in Hollywood back toward using practical effect costumes and puppets as opposed to computer generated images which lack heart. As such, one moment in the movie I really enjoyed was where the party had to reanimate fallen soldiers to try and figure out where an important item was last seen and all of the corpses had tremendous makeup. The movie is worth seeing just to appreciate these great effects not to mention the fun story therein.

Here is the trailer for Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves:

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)

I have been avoiding this one for years since I thought it would be an overlong and mediocre action comedy and I’m sad to say that I was not far off. The movie is at its best when Cavill and Hammer contentiously play off each other which often led to some of the funnier moments in the film.

The core cast of Hammer, Cavill, and Alicia Vikander were all phenomenal here and I would have rather watched them just joke around and the hilarious hijinks they got up to rather than trying to follow the muddled script and boring “who done it” plot.

The best moment in the film is when Cavill leisurely watches Hammer frantically try to evade speed boats chasing after him. The music in that scene and throughout the film was great. I have included that clip below for you to enjoy:

The editing was good but at times impeded the flow of the story and made it too confusing to enjoy. Not sure why Guy Ritchie and Hollywood in general is insistent on having Hugh Grant show up in every film in a cursory role but he again does that here.

Ultimately, this is a decent film with great characters who slog their way through a plot not up to the standard they set.

Here is the trailer for The Man from U.N.C.L.E.