DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES – Review by Susan Granger

Confession: I’ve never played Dungeons & Dragons, so I had to learn a bit about the classic fantasy role-playing game before watching the movie. If you’re also a newbie, I’d advise you do the same. Scripted by co-directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, along with Michael Gilio, it’s based on the complex, immersive game created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in 1974, popularly known as D&D which – in turn – has influenced subsequent game systems involving ‘let’s pretend’ and improvisation. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is a silly, swaggering, swashbuckling adventure.

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DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES – Review by Valerie Kalfrin

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves has ample dungeons, honor, and dragons, along with tremendous fun. From an ensemble cast playing characters with clear traits and motivations to a story filled with clever sequences and close escapes, it’s a rousing adventure that also scores points for unexpected heart. Based on the long-running fantasy tabletop game, it leans heavily on humor without dissolving into farce and is an enjoyable romp.

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THE GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY HOLIDAY SPECIAL – Review by Susan Granger

An animated flashback that shows how, years ago, Yondu (Michael Rooker) ruined Christmas for young Peter Quill by trashing his tree, throwing out his gifts and scolding him for his sentimentality. Listening to this recollection in outer space and realizing how much now-grown Peter – a.k.a. Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) – misses Earth’s holiday customs and traditions, his Guardian friends, Mantis (Pom Klementieff) and Drax (Dave Bautista), embark on a quest to find him the perfect Christmas gift.

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ALL THE OLD KNIVES – Review by Diane Carson

The setup for All the Old Knives works well. After Chechen terrorist Ilyas Shushani’s capture, he reveals that a CIA mole in their Vienna station contributed to the death of one hundred passengers, crew, and hijackers eight years earlier. This alarming news prompts Chief Victor Wallinger (Laurence Fishburne) to reopen this Flight 127 case. For those of us who embrace the cloak-and-dagger genre, it’s a worthy entry.

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