Since its creation in 2011, Minecraft has been a cultural phenomenon. It quickly became the best-selling video of all game, selling over 300 million copies worldwide and currently has over 140 million monthly players. By comparison, 'Fortnite' only has roughly 30 million monthly players! The game is simple a sandbox game where the players have the option to create anything their heart desires in an 8-bit block style. While yes, the game has its own lore, the success of the franchise comes from the open-world possibilities. The game also gained traction on YouTube with stars of the platform gaining notoriety just from playing the game, with Let's Players becoming some of the not only the biggest creators on the platform but some of the biggest social media stars. A large part of the fan base only knows the game through watching videos on YouTube, with the term "Minecraft" having over 1 trillion views. The games success has spawned many spinoff games, LEGOs, Nerf guns, books, you name it 1 the brand is one of the highest-selling IPs of all time. Now the time has come to take these pixels to the big screen with 'A Minecraft Movie'.
As a child, Steve (Jack Black, 'Kung Fu Panda' franchise, 'The Super Mario Bros. Movie') yearned for the mines and devoted his life to exploring them. One day, he finds a blue cube that transports him to the Overworld. While there he discovers the Nether, a world run by Malgosha (Rachel House, 'Moana', 'Next Goal Wins') and her army of Piglins. He's held hostage but the cube makes it back to Earth.
SWITCH: 'A MINECRAFT MOVIE' TRAILER
Natalie (Emma Myers, Netflix's 'Wednesday' and 'Family Switch') and Henry (Sebastian Hansen, 'Just Mercy') are moving away from home after the death of their Mum. Natalie is dealing with taking on the motherly role and supporting her younger brother, while Henry is just trying to fit in at his school while his dreams of being a creativity scientist are shut down. Garret (Jason Momoa, 'Fast X', 'Aquaman') also known as The Garbage Man, won a video game contest in 1989 and has been riding that high ever since. He has a struggling retro game job and just wants to live in that world. Dawn (Danielle Brooks, 2024's 'The Color Purple', 'The Angry Birds Movie'), who is a relator and taking care of exotic animals, assists Natalie when her brother runs away, and with Garret, the four of them end up in the Overworld. They met Steve and now have to try to get back home while facing zombies, chickens and Creepers! Meanwhile, recently divorced Vice Principal Marlene (Jennifer Coolidge, TV's 'The White Lotus', 'Promising Young Woman') is falling in love with a Villager who escaped the Overworld.
Look, we all know this going in: 'A Minecraft Movie' is not good. It baffles me why this wasn't an animated film where it could lean into the style of the game, but here it's just trying to be 'Jumanji' meets 'The LEGO Movie' meets 'Pixels' meets 'The Goonies' meets 'The Super Mario Bros. Movie' meets... this list could go on. It's just another film where characters get transferred to another world and have to get back home. The CGI is so strange, you do get used to it but giving these characters 8-bit textures never quite works, they never look good. Add to this some terrible green screen; every actor is lit so oddly that they truly never look like they are in this world.
'A Minecraft Movie' is not the bottom of the barrel for either video games or family films, but it does fail at being 'A Minecraft Movie'; it lacks creativity and is such a generic time.
The look of the film aside, I will say it had more laughs than I had anticipated. Jason Momoa was actually the right tone, I don't understand narrativity why he is obsessed with retro gaming in a movie about a 14-year-old game, but sure, he did a fine job. The kids and Danielle Brooks fall into the background, not bad also not a standout. Again, an odd choice making the kids pointless for a game that is huge with that younger demographic, but sure. It's also just such an odd group to be on this adventure together and it feels like they barely interact. The standout as always is Jennifer Coolidge, and while it's such an odd subplot to have in this film, it was a delight every time she shows up and is incredibly funny. Jack Black is the biggest victim here - he is slowly becoming the new Ryan Reynolds, just playing the same character every time and it's painfully unfunny. He has multiple songs here, purely because 'Peaches' from 'Mario' did so well. They are all unfunny and simply halt the movie. He just doesn't work for this film.
'A Minecraft Movie' was always going to be a challenge. Its game sold the idea you can build whatever you want, so to make that into a somewhat watchable narrative feature was always going to be a challenge. This could have been the next 'The LEGO Movie', but they took the most generic route possible. It's just another family with a very light 'Minecraft' skin (*wink*). The film also wants to have these fan service moments with places and characters, but it just doesn't work here both because of the source material and the paint-by-numbers story they have made. I will say there is a really bittersweet reference to YouTuber Technoblade who unfortunately passed away from cancer in 2022.
'A Minecraft Movie' is not the bottom of the barrel for either video games or family films, but it does fail at being 'A Minecraft Movie'; it lacks creativity and is such a generic time. Kids will adore it, fans will tolerate it, but overall it just exists. It's still so wild to me that a film based on this game lacks a creative bone - it's the best-selling video game of all time, so why was more care not taken? I left not hating life and that's all I can ask for these days. I got some laughs, I absolutely hated some bits, but by tomorrow I will never think about it again... until the invertible sequel comes out.
I did want to briefly note I find it interesting the juxtaposition between 'A Minecraft Movie' and 'Disney's Snow White'. There are a lot of nuances to this, but on the surface both been very heavily criticised online but have had very different takeaways. For one the conversation is, "That looks awful, let's attack the 23-year-old actor and make sure it bombs," while the other is, "That looks awful, we have to see it."