“A Minecraft Movie” was the first movie that ever made me regret buying a ticket.
Was it entertaining? Yes. Did I laugh out loud multiple times while watching it? Sure.
But most of that came from my inherent love for the game — and the fact that I could not believe Mojang put its name on this.
I mean, I knew what I was getting into. When the trailer came out, I remember staring at my screen in disbelief. From the wacky CGI to cliché dialogue, I fully walked into the movie theater expecting this movie to be horrible.
It exceeded my wildest expectations.
The first five minutes of the movie are just Steve (Jack Black) narrating the “prologue” to the main plot of the film, and his journey from the real world to the Minecraft Overworld. I understand that you need to set a story up somehow and to explain the world to viewers who don’t know it, but let’s face it, only people who play this game would willingly go and sit through this movie, so it’s a waste of time in my opinion.
From there, the character introduction just got even worse. Sure, the story of the young orphaned siblings Natalie (Emma Myers) and Henry (Sebastian Eugene Hansen) is sad, but it is heavily overshadowed by their landlady Dawn (Danielle Brooks) and her million side-hustles including a zoo on wheels, and the owner of a failing video game store Garett “The Garbage Man” Garrison (Jason Momoa) and his “peaked-in-high-school” personality.
And listen, the CGI wasn’t as terrible as I thought it was going to be. Sure I cringed a few times when the Enderman looked like a cartoon cut-out, or when the Creeper was so fluffy it might’ve as well been a giant exploding teddy bear — but I do have to admit some of it had its charm.
The wolf was adorable, the ore visuals were eye-catching and the crafting table mechanic was made pretty well for a blend of a live-action and animated movie.
Though if you ask me, I still do not understand the decision not to just animate the entire Minecraft world. Mojang uses incredible visuals and I do think that the movie’s CGI wouldn’t come off as that bad, but paired with live actors it was too much of a contrast to be enjoyable.
Speaking of live actors, I don’t think I liked a single performance in the entire film. The dialogue was also subpar but the delivery of the lines did not help — and I visibly cringed when Steve said: “First we mine, then we craft … Let’s Minecraft!”
Also, whoever told Black that he can sing after the song “Peaches” from “Super Mario Bros. Movie” went viral, lied. We did not need the two random songs from him in this movie either.
And don’t even get me started on the plot. Because, frankly, I don’t remember there being one.
Of course there was a plotline but it was so overshadowed by everything else that it got lost in the middle of the movie. Combining every character’s own personal journey with the main plot of fighting against the Piglins and their witch queen (where exactly did that come from in the Minecraft lore, I truly have no idea) and with the subplot of Jennifer Coolidge (playing the part of Vice Principal Marlene) dating a nitwit Villager just got to a point where you have no idea where the movie is going — and in a way it makes the movie so unpredictable you really cannot predict what is going to happen next.
There were a few details that annoyed me as someone who has played this game since elementary school. Why did the Zombies and Skeletons not die during the night until they burned in the morning? How did they fly so far on an elytra when you can only glide without rockets? Why did Steve’s diamond armor break so easily and where were his pants when he clearly had enough of them in his mine? Why are we yelling “Release!” when clutching a water bucket?
I expected there to be a lot more callbacks to Minecraft pop-culture and YouTube, but I’ll take the short cameos of LDShadowLady, Aphmau, MumboJumbo and DanTDM — who are some of the original Minecraft YouTubers.
The best part of the movie was the appearance of a Minecraft pig with a golden crown and Steve calling him a legend — according to Collider, it was Hansen who wanted to include this tribute to the late Minecraft YouTuber Technoblade who in a way was the face of the game for years. All I can say is thank you to this young actor, for making sure Technoblade’s legacy is forever immortalized in this movie.
On one hand, I am glad that this movie was made. I have loved this game for so long and I’m glad it is getting more exposure.
But that is also the reason why I’m disappointed with it. Mojang has developed an incredible game that has something for everyone, with lore that keeps expanding year-by-year. There were so many directions the four production studies that worked on it could’ve taken it, and I’m just sad that it was reduced to a mere comedy central with no real impact.
