Four misfits – Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison (Momoa), Henry (Hansen), Natalie (Myers) and Dawn (Brooks) – find themselves struggling with ordinary problems when they are suddenly pulled through a mysterious portal into the Overworld: a bizarre, cubic wonderland that thrives on imagination. To get back home, they’ll have to master this world (and protect it from evil things like Piglins and Zombies, too) while embarking on a magical quest with an unexpected, expert crafter, Steve (Black). Together, their adventure will challenge all five to be bold and to reconnect with the qualities that make each of them uniquely creative…the very skills they need to thrive back in the real world.
- Based on the video game Minecraft.
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As usual, I was perusing new movies on the streaming services when I stumbled across A Minecraft Movie. Since I had never played the game (and couldn’t really figure out the appeal anyway – why go back to 8-bit graphics?) I had given this one a pass before. But, I figured it couldn’t hurt. Jack Black can be funny, Jason Momoa usually isn’t bad, so the two of them teaming up should be good building blocks for the movie. Right?
Jack Black, as Steve, is the main character in A Minecraft Movie, and he starts wearing thin pretty quickly. The prologue before the beginning credits isn’t bad, but when he pops up later, he starts getting kind of annoying. He’s cranked his crazy all the way up for this film, and, while kids may think it’s funny, adults will probably find it becoming irritating. It’s just… viewers can practically see the double exclamation points in EVERYTHING!! HE!! SAYS!! (See? It gets irritating.) Instead of acting, he’s just yelling at the top of his lungs, giving the same exuberance to every line, which makes them all feel a lot less important.
Jason Momoa, who is known for playing a muscle-bound hero (Aquaman) goes the comedy route in A Minecraft Movie. Sure, his outfit helps a lot – lots of pink and 80’s wraparound shades – but he just doesn’t seem to have his timing quite right. In previous roles (even as the titular hero in remake Conan the Barbarian (2010)), his little comedic bits seemed spot-on and natural. Here, it’s like he’s begging for laughs, and it just doesn’t suit him at all.
While Jennifer Coolidge is off-beat fun as a ditzy school vice principal (very similar to her credit card commercials), the rest of the cast of A Minecraft Movie is incredibly forgettable. There’s a generic bad gal pig (obviously added at the last minute), a couple of generic kids and a generic neighbor lady. Nothing stands out from any of their performances – which, in all fairness, can’t really be blamed on them.
For a movie that made a bunch of money, A Minecraft Movie is really thin on an original story. While it’s true they didn’t have much to work with (after all, the game is just about building and destroying things), but with so many writers, viewers might expect a decent story made up for the film. Not really. Instead, viewers can see heavy influences from The Wizard of Oz (there’s even a Toto, in the form of a wolf named Dennis) or direct rip-offs from Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (with Momoa the obvious stand-in for Dwayne Johnson). Heck, it even takes a bit from Pixels (where Peter Dinklage played an aging video game champion still clinging to his old trophies). But, sadly, there’s not much new here at all.
Sure, there’s an underlying theme running through A Minecraft Movie that actually makes sense. In a game based on building and destroying only, the gamer is only limited by their creativity. So, in a film based on that game, the same thing – creativity is the key to happiness – should be reflected. Unfortunately, the filmmakers seem to forget that it applies to all aspects of the film, leaving the script thin while using all of their creativity up on the special effects.
And the special effects are pretty impressive in A Minecraft Movie. They do a good job of fleshing out the blocky world from the game, and watching people, animals and everything else prance around in life-like detail is pretty stunning. The only problem: they forgot that part of the appeal of the film (apparently) is the 8-bit graphics, so it seems a little odd to see such detailed creations springing from that source.
Overall, A Minecraft Movie, despite having talented folks like Jack Black and Jason Momoa, ultimately feels less like an entertaining film, and more like an IP cash grab that comes a bit too late (after all, the game isn’t nearly the buzz of the town it once was). The Lego Movie showed that an IP with no story and blocky characters could deliver a smart script and not be just about the special effects. Apparently, the filmmakers chose to ignore all that, and instead went for a big budget special effects film with a frenetic pace and an in-your-face color scheme, hoping to distract viewers from the weak script.
It’s not that big of a surprise coming from Jared Hess – after all, his Napoleon Dynamite was one of the most overrated movies ever – but it’s disappointing that A Minecraft Movie fooled audiences enough to make nearly a billion dollars worldwide.
