“A Minecraft Movie” had a lot more to lose than it had to gain. Released April 4, the live-action adventure film based on the immensely popular game “Minecraft” raised the questions, “What is this?” and “Who is this for?”
The movie surprisingly struck gold at the box office after Jack Black’s role as Steve sparked part of a viral TikTok trend in which young moviegoers would toss their snacks and cheer for the protagonist as he delivered the line “Chicken Jockey!” But besides the film’s memeification, is it actually worth the watch?
Despite the eccentric choice to cast Black for the role — which most assumed would go to a child — his comedic delivery stands out as one of the strongest parts of the film. Jason Momoa’s role as Garbage Man, a failing video game store owner, was another highlight of the film, particularly in his scenes with Black.
When the duo was together the movie worked best. An escape scene in which the pair boarded a hot air balloon controlled by a ghast — a screeching creature — showed Black’s panicked improvisation plays hilariously against Momoa’s deadpan reactions, turning a simple action sequence into a comedic highlight.
Another memorable scene occurs in the video game store, where the two bicker over the mechanics of an outdated console while under attack. Black frantically presses buttons while Momoa tries to hold off an intruding villain with a plastic guitar controller. The pair’s chemistry and commitment to the bit takes what was originally commonplace action scenes to new heights.
But when the casting falls a little flat, it falls hard. The child actors playing the roles of Natalie and Henry, Emma Myers and Sebastian Eugene Hansen respectively, didn’t seem to serve the film much more than being a catalyst for the plot. Though it’s undeniable that the Minecraft movie needs children in its cast to serve the movie’s themes of creativity, it would have been nice to see an original story written for these characters instead of having them play the cliche-orphan characters that have been shown in nearly every other children’s movie.
The inclusion of actress Danielle Brooks as the children’s realtor was also questionable. Her physical comedy earned a few laughs from the audience, but her inclusion in the film felt like charity work on the actress’s part. Her comedy was reduced purely to her physicality, which is morally questionable, considering she was the only woman of color in the film.
One scene in which she flies out of the portal to the Minecraft realm and crashes into Momoa’s character, knocking him out, was in especially poor taste. In the year 2025, it would be nice to see Black women — especially ones as talented as Brooks — not reduced to their weight for the sake of a cheap gag.
The plot also manages to fall flat, which is impressive, considering it’s based on a game where you can do quite literally anything you imagine. With the infinite possible storylines, this film could have taken, the only reasonable explanation of this unrelieved story is that the screenwriters were actually attempting to brew up the most monotonous, overdone family adventure.
The main conflict of the film stems from the piglins — a nether-based mob from the original game. The evil piglins want to create a permanent night in the overworld realm for a reason that’s never quite explained. The audience gets a few overplayed action scenes from the children, and suddenly the big conflict is defeated, and the characters are all allowed to go home.
Apart from the notable highlight of Jack Black’s Steve and Jason Momoa’s Garbage Man, “A Minecraft Movie” was an unfunny, hideously ugly CGI monstrosity of a movie. The VFX‘s team’s attempt to reimagine the cube-based world of Minecraft appears as unusual and ultimately just plain ugly on the big screen. The characters’ costumes look cheap, and their mediocre acting fails to make up for the film’s contrived story and questionable visual effects.
Perhaps the filmmakers would have been better off leaning into the weird instead of the family-adventure tropeyness its storytelling relied on, at least then the movie could have fallen into so bad it’s good category. Instead,“A Minecraft Movie” is another unoriginal, mid-tier video game movie that lacks nearly everything that could have saved it, most ironically creativity.
This story was written by Allison Scherquist. She can be reached at allison.scherquist@marquette.edu.
