★★★★ This is not the first time that an attempt has been made to bring the patriarch of role-playing games to the screen. But it is the first time that the playful spirit of D&D, where each player can play a character, travel fantastic territories and exert magic and force, is effectively contagious. Here is a group of adventurers on a quest pitted against hideous wizards, fearsome beasts, and most of all, one unscrupulous fellow. The protagonist (notably Chris Pine in his classic humor, an Erroll Flynn of the new century) also has a family problem to solve. The interesting thing is that each appearance of the marvelous, of the “powers”, allows the construction of a gag, of a kind of sidelong look, mocking but kind, to all this fantasy cinema that seems to have definitively colonized the theaters. There is a classic spirit, of “it doesn’t matter much what we say”, which is used to support, above all, the characters. In fact, the dialogues are a more intelligent support (how do role players converse while playing? seems to be the question to answer with them) than the special effects, perfect but already standard in almost every self-respecting big production. This D&D does not bet on the wonder of dragons and labyrinths, but on getting involved in a bond of friendship with its creatures. Like when we were kids and we played at the gate like
