Directed by Jared Hess, A Minecraft Movie follows Four misfits: Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison (Jason Momoa), Henry (Sebastian Hansen), Natalie (Emma Myers), and Dawn (Danielle Brooks), who 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 (Jack Black). Together, their adventure will challenge all five to be bold and reconnect with the qualities that make each of them uniquely creative and give them the very skills they need to thrive back in the real world.
With several popular video games being adapted for film and TV it is no surprise that Minecraft, one of the biggest and most successful games in the world, was the next big game to get an adaptation. But unlike most other video game adaptations Minecraft is one of those games that doesn’t have a story to adapt as it is literally a clean slate for players to create their own worlds and their own stories using the tools and elements the game provides. This has led to the creation of player-created lore as well as the formation of large communities filled with creative people obsessed with the game including myself.
So when an adaptation was announced it was clear that any filmmaker in charge could pretty much go in any direction they wanted with it since they could also create their own world and story using elements of the game and occasionally community lore just like players in the game have done. With that said, was this strange-looking live-action story of Minecraft the kind of adaptation I would have wanted to see on the big screen? No. Did this adaptation end up being fun anyways? Surprisingly, yes. A Minecraft Movie was clearly made and aimed at younger audiences, families, and fans of the game so it’s highly likely that most adults as well as critics will probably not like it at all, but I ended up enjoying most of it.
While it certainly has its faults and choices that I wasn’t keen on I felt that the over-the-top nature and zany charm of this film won me over, mostly due to the performances by the leading cast members, a self-aware story that wasn’t trying to take itself so seriously, and its fun use of the game’s biggest elements in action. I may end up being in an extreme minority with this film but I didn’t think it was anywhere near the disaster that most may consider it as or thought it would be from the trailers.
The cast clearly had a lot of fun making this film as shown in their performances but the biggest standouts are the dynamic duo of Jack Black and Jason Momoa as Steve and Garrett respectively. Jack Black is as unhinged as you’d expect in his portrayal of Steve, playing to his strengths in comedy. If you love Jack Black’s energetic and over-the-top style of humor like I do then you will absolutely enjoy him as Steve but if not then you will probably not like him as much.
However, I found myself laughing the hardest at Jason Momoa, who is supremely funny as a washed-up gamer who takes himself too seriously. From the moment he stepped on screen I absolutely loved his character and couldn’t stop loving him all the way through the film. He made every single line of dialogue, no matter how stupid sounding it is, hilarious and his physical slapstick comedy was just the best. Both individually and together these two really carry the film with their comedic energy and by the end of the film I wanted to watch even more films with them together even if it wasn’t Minecraft.
Danielle Brooks as Dawn also was a great addition to the film with her own style of humor giving some heart and spark with her performance, much like with her role in Peacemaker. You can’t help but adore her and her character in this film just as much as you do in that series.
As for the two kid characters played by Sebastian Hansen and Emma Myers, I thought their performances were alright but unfortunately, I really didn’t care much about their characters. They weren’t annoying or irritating at all but their characters and story were shallow despite the attempts to make them emotionally compelling. They both clearly had fun in all the action scenes of the film and shone when they started utilizing the tools of Minecraft but truthfully I cared more about Steve, Garrett, and Dawn over both of them.
Rachel House voices the big bad of this film as Malgosha, the piglin ruler of the Nether, and she makes for a decent villain for a family-aimed film though she could have been more entertaining. We also get Jennifer Coolidge as a character in a random subplot involving her and a Minecraft villager that was so bizarre yet somehow manages to be funny due to Jennifer Coolidge herself. No matter what she is in she never fails to be funny and despite her short appearance in this film she definitely got some good laughs out of me.
Director Jared Hess is known for his weirdly random and unhinged style of comedy with previous works, like Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre, and he infuses that style within the creative world of Minecraft, making for an adaptation that is zany as hell but also mostly entertaining in my view especially when it is fully self-aware and refuses to take itself seriously. So if you are into his kind of style whether it be ironically or unironically then chances are you will be into this film too.
I didn’t care much about the real-world stuff at the beginning of the film but once it actually gets into the world of Minecraft I was fully on board with the wild and humor-filled adventure that was full of fun with its creative use of the game’s tools and elements as well as a bunch of inside jokes and easter eggs for fans of the games to enjoy. It’s a film that also explores how far imagination can go and it does feel like the perfect film for families to watch around this time of year that is just harmless goofy fun even if it can be considered dumb fun.
People who aren’t as well versed in the world or community of Minecraft will probably not understand nor like a majority of this film as a result but as someone who is well versed, I personally liked what was given as well as the effort that was put into some of the references they did. By far the best reference of the film was the Minecraft pig in a crown, which was a touching tribute to the late popular Minecraft YouTuber known as Technoblade who sadly passed away from cancer at the age of 23 in 2022. It may not mean much to people who aren’t a part of the community or have never seen his channel but it means a lot to many others who had watched his content and were deeply saddened by his sudden passing. For that, I deeply respect Hess and his team for making such a heartwarming tribute showing that they did clearly care about the Minecraft community when making this film.
One of the most talked about elements of this film even before its release was the highly uncanny and unhinged visual effects, specifically for the blocky animals and creatures of this film, also known as mobs in the game. Like most people, I was a bit put off by how some of the mobs looked in live-action in the trailers but after seeing them in the actual film itself most of them actually didn’t look that bad. Yes, there are definitely some animals and creatures that still look uncanny as hell in terms of looks but they actually looked kind of visually pleasing, even when it’s uncanny, especially since it matches the humorous tone of this film. There were also some designs I thought looked legitimately great like the wolves, the creepers, the piglins, the vindicators, and even the iron golems, who easily had the best scenes in the film. The creepiest creature they adapted almost too well in terms of looks and feels was the Enderman with its haunting slender body and piercing purple eyes.
As for the effects of the Minecraft world itself, I won’t lie in admitting it actually looks really good, especially when a surprising amount of the sets and props were all practical. Numerous items, tools, blocks, and structures within the film were all made through impressive practical effects that looked really damn good and clearly had a lot of effort put into making them. Even if you aren’t sold on the CGI you have to give credit for making the effort of adding in as many practical effects as they could and make them look really cool in live action. Now there are some CGI effects here and there that don’t look that great but overall I didn’t think of this as an ugly-looking film, especially when the world itself is gorgeous to look at and is shot extremely well with some great cinematography.
In terms of music, we do get a solid score by composer Mark Mothersbaugh who does some orchestrally epic renditions of the iconic music of the game that fit perfectly with the adventurous tone of the film, but we also get some crazy fun songs from none other than Jack Black himself to add even more zaniness to this film.
Overall, I found myself mostly enjoying this bizarre yet fun adaptation of one of my favorite games. Would I have preferred a different approach compared to what I got? Absolutely, but at the same time, I don’t think what we got was a total disaster either like what was initially expected. It’s a fine and fun film that is aimed at a specific target audience that will likely enjoy it like I did. I’m going to give A Minecraft Movie a B = 86.
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