“A Minecraft Movie” Review – Spotlight Report
People critical of the very idea of A Minecraft Movie need only look back to the same arguments being made against the idea of The Lego Movie. There’s no reason to write off something as mere product placement if the team behind it is the right one for the job. When it emerged that Napoleon Dynamite auteur Jared Hess was the director for A Minecraft Movie, it raised hopes that something interesting would happen. The trailer, sadly, didn’t help. Could anything redeem what looked like it was going to be the cinematic equivalent of nails on a chalkboard?
When Henry (Sebastian Hansen) and his sister Natalie (Emma Myers) arrive in Chuglass, Idaho to start a new life, they encounter a glowing cube (it’s an “orb” in Minecraft) that sucks them into the Overworld. Together with faded gaming star Garrett (Jason Momoa), real-estate agent and animal carer Dawn (Danielle Brooks) and Minecraft-world veteran Steve (Jack Black), they take on the Piglins of the Nether, led by the evil Malgosha (Rachel House).
In terms of story, there’s little to distinguish A Minecraft Movie from many other sucked-into-a-fantasy-world stories but with Hess at the helm, there are some stylistic flourishes that elevate proceedings. The “real” world of the film is a weirdly timeless rural purgatory, reminiscent of the world of Napoleon Dynamite, but a little more fantastical. Centered around a giant potato factory, with vintage video game stores and arcades, burned out people whose personal style froze in the late ’80s do their best to stay afloat. This world is so interesting that it’s honestly a disappointment when the cast enters the far more generic, CGI-scape of Minecraft. Jason Momoa’s Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison, a walking series of macho poses in a faded Pontiac Trans-Am and pink, tasselled leather jacket, is worth an entire movie on his own. Therein lies the central problem for A Minecraft Movie: Its central premise is less interesting than what the talent brought in with them. Too much of Jack Black is always a possibility for any film that features him, and this one skirts dangerously close. It’s hard not to worry that he’s going to have a stroke from the intensity of his performance here, but in the end he’s up against a very colourful crew that actually balances out his excesses. A Minecraft Movie is an extremely high-energy affair, with a lot of yelling and screaming (and occasional singing) that will either win you over or irritate you.
It’s fair to say that A Minecraft Movie has a target audience and that audience will be very pleased with it. It’s so surreal and left-field at times that it also seems destined to develop a cult following amongst people not interested in the game at all. Does that make it a great film? No. A Minecraft Movie is a rather mediocre film that exceeds some very low expectations. It’s good in ways entirely unrelated to its intended subject matter, ways that make the central premise of the film feel almost tacked on. It’s frankly a little schizophrenic, and a bit too shrill for most adult viewers. Kids who play Minecraft will probably love it.
