Minecraft has been around since 2011, but spawned new interest when a film adaptation of the game was released. As an avid player in grade school, I was eager to see how Jared Hess would portray humans in a world of colorful blocks with a budget of $150 million. Others were interested in the film for a different reason. Clips of actor Jack Black, who plays the leading role of Steve, surfaced across the internet, particularly on Instagram reels. Some of his lines became sensationalized, with many students going to Black Bear Cinemas just to see the memes come to life before their eyes.
When I say many students, I mean hundreds of them. I showed up 30 minutes early for the 6:15 p.m. showing, only to find it sold out. Behind me, a line of people out the door nearly reached the laundromat. I made the cut for a 3D showing at 6:45 p.m., which I personally disliked but I promise it won’t hinder my review. Students in the hall lined up in mass amounts to get into the specific theater. I watched the rowdy crowd stampede inside together, as if they were at a marathon starting line.
In terms of the film itself, I was blown away by the visual quality. The animation was the best balance between realism, and accuracy to the cartoon-based game. The sizing was perfect, with the sheep, wolves, trees and houses being as large as they would be in real life. The villagers were flawless and made the proper “heh” sound, with the audio coming directly from Mojang. Now, if half of this effort was also put into the script and plot, the movie would have been truly special.
Black is a dynamic actor, good for a light-hearted adventure comedy like this one. However, he is simply too old for the role in my opinion. Steve is a skin in this game played most commonly by children. Steve is probably meant to be an adult, but not middle aged. With the $150 million put into this movie, they couldn’t buy a bottle of brown hair dye to color in Black’s graying beard?
We begin the film with a narration from Steve himself, and how he yearned to mine as a child but was turned away. Upon returning as an adult, he found a glowing blue cube underground that transported him to the Minecraft realm. The movie goes on to follow the story of Natalie, a young woman and her brother, Henry, who move to Chuglass, Idaho for a fresh start. It is alluded to that their mother passed away recently but there is no indication of how. As the film goes on, they stop bringing her up altogether.
Henry, a creative prodigy, is ridiculed in the real world for thinking outside of the box. He meets Garett “The Garbage Man” Garrison, played by Jason Momoa, a washed up professional gamer who serves as the boy’s flawed mentor. The three protagonists were joined by a random realtor lady who happened to be there for the entire adventure. Jennifer Coolidge had a cameo in the movie as a newly-divorced vice principal that ends up romantically involved with a villager.
The lead protagonists are accidentally transported to the Minecraft realm after Garett finds the cube in a storage unit. Not only are they unable to get home, but an army of piglin creatures are holding another part of the cube that they need, located in the dark depths of a realm known as the Nether. The piglins are ruled by the villainous Malgosha, who we find out was humiliated at a young age for wanting to become a dancer.
Not to spoil the ending, but Natalie, Henry, Garett and Steve ultimately defeat the piglins in battle. I was fully expecting a callback to Malgosha’s backstory of wanting to dance. I figured she would have a change of heart and start twirling around or whatever. They just leave her to rot and go home.
Ultimately, I was impressed by the setting and animation. The endermen were my favorite. Everything seemed accurate to the game itself, with very little left out. However, the movie catered too much to an audience that wanted to enjoy it ironically. Casting Black as Steve and giving him the most clippable lines had to have been a strategic move to draw social media attention.
I can’t help but imagine how much better “A Minecraft Movie” would have been if the creators leaned more into telling an interesting story than making people laugh. I love a comedy, but Minecraft is a unique concept that would do better with a more genuine hero plotline. Serious effort was put into building the world and bringing it to life. I have a strong feeling that someone wrote a bunch of stupid dialogue for Jack Black and then later built a plot around it. Maybe they spent a year making the movie only to realize hours before the release date that it needs a sequence of events.
Final Rating: 5/10
