A Minecraft Movie
Rating: 2.5/5
By: Nathaniel Simpson
Minecraft is one of the biggest video games in the world, with millions of people playing it everyday and thousands of streamers building their own worlds and collaborating with one another. Therefore, with the abundance of films being adapted from video games, it was inevitable that they would adapt the video game where its players run around building things, mining, and fighting off creepers. However, how are they going to take a game with practically no real plot and turn it into a feature-length film? They try their best here, but even though the film shows that it is having a lot of fun, it's simply all over the place, begging the question of whether or not a film can get by on the basic focus of it being fun.
Jack Black plays the iconic character of Steve, who is the main playable character in the video game. In the film, Steve years for the mines, as he says in the beginning before he goes and finds a glowing orb in one of the mines he visited as a child. That glowing orb, when combined with the base it comes with, transported Steve into a world unlike anything he has ever seen before. In this cartoonish world, he is able to build whatever he wants and mine to his heart's desire; this is Heaven to the middle-aged man. However, when he is captured by Malgosha (Rachel House), the piglin ruler other the Nether who wants the orb for himself, he is scared this world he has created is going to be destroyed.
However, when low-life Garrett "The Garbage Man" Garrison (Jason Momoa) finds the orb in a storage locker, him and the creative young Henry (Sebastian Hansen) go into this beautifully creative world, followed by Henry's sister (Emma Myers) and their real estate agent (Danielle Brooks). They encounter Steve, who promises to help them get home if they help him stop the pigs before they destroy the world.
Going in, I had VERY low expectations for this film. I was honestly never the biggest Minecraft fan growing up, and the trailers for this movie made me recoil in horror on what they were doing. I figured I wouldn't like this movie walking into the theater, and when the movie was done, I found myself not entirely hating everything they did. In fact, I did enjoy myself for some parts, and wouldn't be entirely opposed to watching it again one day. It didn't blow my socks off or surprised me at all, but it definitely wasn't as bad as I was thinking it was going to be.
Momoa and Black are definitely the standout characters here for me, especially the former. Momoa is pretty much playing this loser version of himself, and it's hilarious to watch at times. He is very good at playing a loser and someone who is sacred of most everything; it's very refreshing to see him play this type of character instead of ones he usually plays. Black is playing his usual character here that he has played for the last ten years or so, and it seems like they give him full reign of this character here. He is crazy, eccentric, over-the-top, and perhaps way too much sometimes, but he is fun for many of the scenes he is in. I also think Jennifer Coolidge is quite funny in this film as well, even though she is only here for perhaps five minutes of the whole runtime. She is really good at stealing the spotlight, which she does in her scenes.
Besides them, I don't really think the other main protagonists or their performances really work here. Hansen doesn't give a bad performance, but I think the writing for his character is not the best. They make him very whiny and annoying, and I was just annoyed of his character by halfway through the film. At the same time, if they had taken out Myers and Brooks characters, the film wouldn't change at all. The two actresses don't do anything wrong at all, but their characters are so insignificant to the plot that the viewer starts to wonder why they are even there.
This film is quite funny at times and it definitely is just a fun joyride throughout the Minecraft universe. Like I said, I was never too big of a fan of this game growing up, but even I enjoyed seeing some of the aspects and areas from the game. However, the plot is all over the place. It seems like they struggled coming up with a plot, so they combine a bunch of ideas that simply don't work together. For the most part, I liked all of the ingredients, but the finished product didn't come out right. You'll definitely have fun watching this movie, but it's definitely not great, or even good, cinema. This begs that question of whether just being fun can work. I think it can, but there are numerous movies that are great for being fun and having no plot. This one unfortunately isn't one of them, and it definitely needed more story elements for it to truly work.
There is no doubt this movie is a lot of fun for the whole family. I think there is something here for everyone, and you definitely won't be bored from beginning to end. However, as a movie, it's simply lacking. It doesn't work the best at multiple times throughout the movie, and I was wanting something just a little bit more throughout. It's definitely not as bad as other video game adaptations, but it is still a very flawed movie.
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