‘A Minecraft Movie’ review: Writer’s block

The über-popular video game finally comes to the big screen with blocky worlds and boring characters in A Minecraft Movie.

To be fair to director Jared Hess and crew, I wouldn’t know what to do with a Minecraft movie either. It sounds so simple on paper – just make an action/adventure fantasy with a ragtag group of heroes traveling to far-off locales. But once you get into the actual…Minecraft of it all, it starts to get a little shaky. Minecraft is a 14-year-old sandbox RPG that’s not difficult to pick up. The simplicity is right in the name and once you boil the game down to its basic properties, it’s really about mining materials to craft cool stuff. As your time progresses however, you’ll find that it’s much harder to master every aspect of it. Surprisingly vast in scope and near-limitless for those with an active enough imagination, Minecraft has survived for over a decade maintaining the same art style and concepts, adding slight updates here and there throughout those years. 

Nowadays, you can build and break blocks, trade with villagers, construct intricate railroad systems, and fight off hordes on almost every major console and device with a screen. Minecraft novels and comics are available to purchase, as well as Minecraft merchandise. You can dress your kid up as “Minecraft Steve” for Halloween! Who even knows what people were doing with all of those blue T-shirts and Old Navy jeans before? It was only a matter of time before the big blocks made it to the big screen.

Despite the long wait, the Minecraft film adaptation never seemed to lose steam, even during an information dry spell. With a whopping 186 million players still logging in and laying logs monthly, that isn’t too surprising. But the wait is officially over and A Minecraft Movie is finally here. You’ll notice I’ve yet to really talk about the plot, but I’m having a hard time finding it. 

Crafting a story.

A Minecraft Movie has a premise, of course. It’s a classic action/adventure fantasy with a ragtag group of heroes who venture off to far-off locales. We’ve got our one ring (the Orb of something or other), our Frodo portrayed by newcomer Sebastian Hansen, and an evil, Piglin ruler with a world-conquering vendetta. Piglin Sauron is voiced by Rachel House (a frequent of Taika Waititi films), and if you blink you might miss the fact that she’s even in this movie. That’s because A Minecraft Movie is much less interested in even wrapping up its plot than it is shoehorning as many references from the game as it possibly can. 

Surprisingly, this is the most impressive detail of A Minecraft Movie. Accurately portray the world of Minecraft on screen is a big ask. If this were the ’90s, Steve would be a middle-aged construction worker who finds a magic pickaxe and fights a corporate shareholder named “E. Dragon” or something. With that, I have to commend A Minecraft Movie for fully committing to the blocky aesthetic. Fans of the game can see zombies, skeletons, and Creepers in high definition CGI. There’s wingsuits, diamond armor, villagers and their villages, and much more. The world is a vibrant, blocky 3D landscape that should be immediately familiar to anyone who’s played the game. The visuals are the high point of A Minecraft Movie and it’s impressive to see how accurate Hess and co.’s vision is, even down to how blocks are broken and replaced just like in the game.

Mining for motivation.

However the one detail they should have left in the game were the underdeveloped, practically NPC-like characters. A Minecraft Movie starts off with a rushed opening introducing us to our major players. We learn that Steve “yearned for the mines” as a child, Jason Momoa is a washed-up gamer guru with a vintage shop, siblings Natalie and Henry are moving back to their childhood hometown, and Danielle Brooks owns a bunch of side hustles. That’s pretty much it for character introductions and convictions. Most of the actors here are seriously underutilized, especially Brooks whose character hardly feels relevant to the plot whatsoever. She kind of just tags along with no real motivations of her own. The most the movie gives her is being great with animals, which does pay off in a somewhat significant way.

Momoa and Jack Black are clearly fighting for the spotlight here, despite the film insisting it should be on Hansen. Henry is the kid playing Minecraft, the one the audience can connect to. Yet he’s constantly being overshadowed by Steve and Momoa’s Garret “The Garbage Man” Garrison. The film stops dead many times so that they can have cringey macho competitions that come off as some studio exec’s idea of a homoerotic gag. This is Momoa at his least entertaining, with his character boiled down to being a big guy who can’t fight and getting thrown around at every opportunity. His desperation to keep up with Black’s bravado makes for the movie’s worst jokes. That’s not saying much, as every other joke that might’ve landed falls short thanks to the camera lazily cutting over to a character giving a side-eye.

Black makes absolutely no effort to be anybody but Jack Black. But at least in a movie like this, that makes sense. Steve has absolutely no personality in the game, and judging by his completely normal attire, he’s probably just a regular guy. There’s not much for Black to attach to here, so he just defaults into being the teacher from School of Rock with a beard. His performance isn’t bad, just completely expected and not much to write home about. I will say that his straight-faced acceptance of the Minecraft world around him got me more engaged with it myself. 

The bottom line.

A Minecraft Movie hardly has a plot, and it certainly doesn’t care to develop its characters in any significant way. Everything goes how you’d expect and wraps up exactly how it should. But it isn’t a terrible movie. The premise lacks creativity, but the source material itself is no thesis paper. Minecraft as a concept is all about imagination, and A Minecraft Movie manages to maintain that imaginative spirit with a fun, lore-ridden world and eye-catching digital effects. We’re still surprised by video game to film adaptations that accurately portray the worlds and concepts of their source. But as we hopefully get more of those in the future, A Minecraft Movie might not be able to stand the test of time with its middling plot. Fans of Minecraft will find a serviceable movie with really nice visuals, and that’s about it.

A Minecraft Movie hits theaters Friday, April 4. Watch the trailer here.

Images courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures. Read more articles by Adonis Gonzalez here.