Movie: “A Minecraft Movie”
Release Date: April 4, 2025
Director: Jared Hess
Runtime: 1 hour, 41 minutes
Genre: Fantasy/Comedy
Rating: C+
There are many things a college student could spend $20 on. A subscription, a healthy meal, or maybe you could even save it. You could also spend $21.60 to see the Minecraft movie in 3D.
“A Minecraft Movie” has some serious flaws, with the story often feeling unorganized and the conflicts contrived. But, the absurdity of it all makes for a mostly enjoyable experience.
Set in the Overworld, a lush and endless land full of villages and mines that are all made out of blocks, where anything can be built with the power of imagination, the story follows Jack Black, who plays himself, though is addressed by the other characters as “Steve.” In the real world, Steve yearned for the mines as a child, and once he finally achieves his dream as a middle-aged adult, he quickly discovered a magical orb that transported him to the otherworldly Overworld, where he tamed a pet wolf named Dennis.
It's not all utopian though, as there’s also an underworld, known as the Nether, which is ruled over by piglin (pig plus goblin) witch Malgosha (Rachel House), who captures Steve and takes the orb. She commands an army led by her top aide, General Chungus (Jared Hess.)
In a daring move, Steve sends Dennis and the orb away to the real world to keep it safe from Malgosha. That’s where the band of misfits that ultimately accompany Steve on a journey across the Overworld to try and get back home come in.
Natalie (Emma Myers) and Henry (Sebastian Hansen) are two orphaned siblings that move to a small town called Chuglass, Idaho, as that was apparently their mother’s final wish. Natalie is a quirky young adult who works as the social media manager for a local potato chip factory. She also serves as Henry’s legal guardian, who struggles to fit in at his new high school amidst failed efforts to create a working jet pack.
Danielle Brooks plays Dawn, their real estate agent, who also kind of seems like a parental figure or social worker. Is she? Does it matter? Dawn also moonlights as an animal wrangler, which is brought up several times throughout in case you missed it or forget the last mention.
Finally, they’re joined by Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison (Jason Momoa), a washed-up competitive gamer who happens upon the orb in a storage unit sale after the closure of his floundering video game store.
Once the four join up and inadvertently find themselves with Steve in the Overworld, the plot begins. It's simple, predictable and underdeveloped, which shouldn’t be a surprise. It’s also fun, but in the dumbest way possible.
The movie cuts between its subplots at seemingly random intervals, which progress and converge at a similarly haphazard pace. Though nostalgia is definitely a boost, background knowledge about the game is not needed, as Jack Black will clearly and loudly identify items from the game as they appear.
What is required is watching the trailers first, so you can identify those references as "That line from the trailer!" like everyone else will be doing. Director Jared Hess doesn’t limit himself to Minecraft references, also peppering the film with nods to his break-out 2004 film “Napoleon Dynamite.”
The dialogue is clichéd to an absurd degree. But, committed performances, especially from Black and Momoa, make a decent amount of it work. It feels mean to pick on a child actor, but the main weak point in the cast is Hansen’s Henry, who has comparatively dull lines and delivery and is just kind of annoying. Henry is given inexplicably little attention and development despite being positioned as the main protagonist.
Jennifer Coolidge is typically entertaining as Marlene, the vice principal of Henry’s school, fresh off a divorce, who falls in love with a villager inadvertently transported to the real world. These scenes are completely unrelated and irrelevant to the main plot.
Speaking of villagers, the Minecraft character animation is initially somewhat off putting, feeling straight out of a “Minecraft but realistic graphics” YouTube video , but you get used to it. The landscape visuals are occasionally inventive, with the real-world small town having especially fun art direction. It’s comforting to know none of the computer-generated animals were harmed during production.
The movie also features solid cinematography, with some fun shots and a serviceable score. It’s brought down by a bland climax and an ending that goes out of its way to highlight the script’s lack of effective setups and natural progression, but it’s not the disaster many predicted it would be. It's mindless, but not soulless.
Movies like this are often accused of lacking artistry, but what makes something art, really? The Minecraft movie was certainly greenlit for commercial reasons, and it’s no masterpiece, having a few deep flaws. However, the filmmakers and actors still cared, and still tried to make an entertaining movie while advancing their careers. There are much better, much more original films out there, but there are also certainly some terrible films out there still considered art, so this should be too.
There is indeed a post-credits tease for a sequel that, given the movie’s record-breaking success at the box office, feels inevitable.
Those numbers have also sparked discussions around a Fortnite adaptation, where audiences could potentially see beloved characters that have been featured in the game as skins, like Spider-Man, Peter Griffin, LeBron James and Ariana Grande all battle it out for a victory royale on the big screen.
If approached as a “film” with serious thought given to the plot and character’s motivations, “A Minecraft Movie” will probably disappoint. But if looked at as an experience, with some friends and a good (but not too good) crowd, it can be a lot of fun.