A Minecraft Movie and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros Pictures
Directed by Jared Hess
I’m getting too old for this. I’m sure I’ve said that before, but it’s only getting truer with time as the generation after me starts to come into its own. I suppose Minecraft was something of my own generation, but it had never clicked with me back when it was new, and I’m certainly not about to dive back into it now; even if it would bring a bit more insight into what the heck is going on in this movie. Besides, I brought my seventeen-year-old cousin to the theater with me, so he was able to explain quite a few of the references. Now Millennials are no strangers to irreverence and inanity as we grew up with Internet 1.0 and Newgrounds, but rarely has that aspect of our pop culture been put on the big screen; especially with such an exorbitant budget and big name stars. Is there enough juice to squeeze out of this franchise to make an entertaining movie for all ages, or will I finally understand what my grandma went through when I dragged her to see The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie all those years ago? Let’s find out!!
Stuck in a rut and yearning for more in life, a Man called Steve (Jack Black) ventures into the mines to dig out his destiny, and wouldn’t you know it! He finds a cube that takes him to a land of square shaped geometry and similarly boxy creatures! Some of them are friendly like the villagers and his pet wolf (), but others have bad attitudes such as the pigs from the Netherworld who wish to take over the Overworld where Steve now resides. Seeking to protect his new home, he sends the magic cube to his world so it will stay out of rich of the pigs, and it winds up in the possession of Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison (Jason Momoa) whose entire personality revolves around a video game tournament he won in the eighties. With the help of the new kid in town Henry (Sebastian Hansen), he haplessly uses the power of the cube to go to the Overworld along with Henry’s sister Natalie (Emma Myers) and the local real estate agent Dawn (Danielle Brooks). Now that the cube is back within the reach of the pigs and their leader Malgosha (Rachel House), these four must unite with Steven and find a way back home to keep the Overworld safe once and for all! Will this call to action turn these misfits into heroes, or will this journey simply reveal how much growing up they still have to do? What wonders does this world contain, and are there enough of them to fill a ninety-minute movie? Wouldn’t the audience for a Minecraft movie much rather see the movie recreated in Minecraft?
Yeah, it’s not that good. I hate to break the hearts of everyone who was looking forward to this, or dreading having to see this with their kids, but there’s not much to this movie that will entice the uninitiated. Still, it’s not terrible either, as the sheer embarrassment of riches at this film’s disposal at least leads to some interesting aesthetic choices and a couple of talent comedians to liven up the bare-bones script. Its biggest problem is its story, which is paper thin and cynically conceived; grabbing elements of much better movies and barely even attempting to make them its own. You can almost feel the frustration and utter contempt of everyone involved when it’s forced to go through the motions of a narrative arc that’s already as flimsy as it could be; as if doing the absolute bare minimum is such an imposition for a movie that was guaranteed to be a box office success before the cameras started to roll. There are movies that can get by on a low effort story as long as they focus on something that they genuinely excel at. A lot of comedies are this way, most martial arts movies are more setup than plot, and there’s no need to reiterate the brilliance of Hundreds of Beavers for the millionth time. For the kids out there who are entrenched in the Minecraft scene, I can see why this would work, as it does seem to be as enthusiastic about its own existence as its fans are. The trailers did not do this movie justice, as what looked to be shoddy visuals against obvious green screens manages to gain some depth in the final product and almost becomes a style unto itself. I appreciated the film’s almost surrealistic approach to turning the low-poly and super blocky art style into something approaching a realistic look, and there are a few moments where it uses the visual language of video games to produce some interesting shots. I’d even say the humor clicks a bit more than it doesn’t, as Jack Black approaches this with the same level of comedic intensity that he does everything else, and Momoa finds a fun balance between pathetic loser and rugged underdog that carries him through his tedious dialogue and paint by numbers character arc.
Still, I just couldn’t get past how uninspired and weightless the story was, and there’s simply no excuse for it. Movies from more dubious source material have produced comparable, if not outright superior, results, and few of those had the budget and corporate backing that this movie had. Perhaps the audience for this is too young to have seen The Lego Movie in theaters, but is there any reason that Warner Bros couldn’t put even half as much heart into this film as they did there? Jared Hess is not an incompetent filmmaker and everything that works about this movie outside the special effects I attribute to his ability to get the most out of his actors, but there’s only so much you can do when all everyone at the studio was interested in is slapping the brand name across the screen and calling it a day.
Can I honestly say that this is a bad movie? Unfortunately, no. Despite every Old Man inclination I have to be entirely dismissive of this nonsense, I know that it will connect for its target audience the same way silly stuff from my own youth connected with me. The cynicism of the whole enterprise is apparent and worthy of no small amount of scorn, but if the Looney Tunes shoe commercial from the 90s gets a pass, then I guess I’ll try to meet this one halfway. If you aren’t a fan of the game, the community, or anything else the kids of today enjoy, then it’s not worth seeking out on its own. If you know someone who would fit that description or falls into that age group, then it’s certainly not the worst thing in the world to spend a few hours on, and maybe a few of the jokes will keep you entertained when you aren’t befuddled by how loudly everyone else is cheering at this. We Millennials had a good run, I suppose, though I do wish we’d have gotten at least one solid stretch of a good economy before we were relegated to the dustbin of history. Skibidi Toilet and whatnot.
The Reviewers Unite 