"A Minecraft Movie" review: How can I block this film from my memory?
We’re living through a video game movie renaissance. Films like Illumination’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and Paramount’s “Sonic the Hedgehog” franchise have caught on with audiences and even critics in some cases. But taking into consideration the checkered history which largely continues to burden video game movies, I’ve always maintained that these films still have much to prove. Is the recent string of decent video game movies a flash in the pan, or is it a sign of things to come?
In any case, “A Minecraft Movie” serves to further validate the assertion that there’s still a long way to go in order for films based on video games to establish themselves as a sustainable and compelling source of entertainment.
I’ve long had my doubts about a film based on “Minecraft”. I know the game well — I was precisely the right age for it when it became popular, and so I played it a great deal. Anyone who has played “Minecraft” knows that it’s a very nonlinear video game. It doesn’t really have a story in the traditional sense. There is some kind of endgame, but there is no one delineated way to realize it. “Minecraft” is, in essence, an open-ended sandbox game, and thus hardly lends itself to conventional filmic storytelling.
And yet, this is precisely what “A Minecraft Movie” attempts.
As a child, Steve (Jack Black) wants more than anything to work in the mines, but is spurned on account of his age. When he grows up and finds himself working an unfulfilling desk job, he returns to the mines, this time able to get right to work. As he digs away, he unearths a glowing cube-shaped orb and a vessel in which to place the orb. When the orb is placed inside the vessel, a portal is opened. This portal leads into another world: the Overworld, a cube-based land in which anything that can be imagined can be created. Here, Steve builds shelters, befriends a wolf whom he names Dennis, and ultimately constructs an “awesome” world using only the powers of his artistry.
One day, Steve discovers the Nether, a hellish dimension in which the concepts of fun and creativity are shunned, and the exercise thereof strictly proscribed. The Nether is inhabited by humanoid pig creatures called Piglins, who are led by Malgosha (Rachel House). The orb which Steve holds also has an uncanny power to transform dimensions — a power which Malgosha seeks to harness so she can conquer the Overworld and destroy everything which its residents have built. Steve and his dog Dennis are captured, but Dennis is later able to escape, charged by Steve with hiding the orb on Earth so Malgosha cannot obtain it.
Sometime later, in a nondescript Idaho town called Chuglass, we come across four characters. The first is Garrett (Jason Momoa), a former video game champion who has since fallen on hard times as the owner of a failing store, and thus has not truly moved on from what he sees as the defining moment of his life. We then meet siblings Henry (Sebastian Hansen) and Natalie (Emma Myers). Henry is the younger sibling, woefully unconfident and yet possessing an impressive creative intuition which only he seems to appreciate. Natalie has been forced to assume the role of Henry’s caretaker in the wake of their mother’s death, and has just secured a position on the social media team at the potato chip factory in town. Dawn (Danielle Brooks) is a real estate agent and a former friend of Henry and Natalie’s deceased mother. She also loves animals, and deploys them as part of a mobile petting zoo which she operates as a side hustle.
When Henry gets in trouble at school after an experiment goes awry, he enlists Garrett, whom he met earlier at his store, to pretend to be his uncle. While together, they discover the orb and its vessel, which draw them toward the mineshaft in which Steve first found them. Natalie, concerned for her brother’s welfare, goes to find him. Dawn accompanies her.
Natalie and Dawn catch up to Henry and Garrett inside the mine, but the orb’s power drags them all into the Overworld. The four are bewildered by what they see, and are unsure as to what to do.
Malgosha soon learns that the orb has been returned to the Overworld, and conscripts Steve to work on her behalf and retrieve the orb for her, promising to kill his dog should he not comply. Steve reluctantly agrees, and soon encounters the four visitors when they find themselves under attack by zombies and skeletons. In the chaos, the vessel which enables the orb to open the portal to Earth is destroyed, and the portal is rendered inactive.
Steve asks the visitors to give him the orb, but they insist that he first help them get home. He informs them that another vessel can be found in a faraway mansion, so the five set out on a quest to get to the mansion, grab the vessel, and get the visitors home.
Convinced that Steve has no intention of procuring the orb for her, Malgosha orders her minions to take it by force. Can Steve and his newfound companions accomplish their mission while avoiding falling victim to Malgosha’s scheme?
I only find it appropriate to first address the elephant in the room: the Chicken Jockey. Videos of moviegoers, who definitely should know better, throwing popcorn and sodas at screenings of “A Minecraft Movie” have been flooding the internet as of late. The indiscretion of these hooligans aside, the scene in which a baby zombie rides a chicken and fights Garrett is really quite dull. It’s just a sequence of unfunny slapstick and boring jokes. I find it exceedingly bizarre that this serves as the highlight of the film for so many people. I find it equally bizarre that people find it acceptable to act in such a selfish and disrespectful manner at the theater. This may sound inordinately harsh, but I think people who behave like this should be permanently banned from the theater at which they commit such acts.
Unfortunately, the Chicken Jockey scene is a microcosm of the film as a whole. “A Minecraft Movie” is an aggressively humorless and insipid affair. I actually found myself surprised at how little I laughed during the film. The film elicited maybe two giggles from me: one when Steve and Garrett distract the axe-wielding Vindicators at the Woodland Mansion so as to enable Henry to find and grab the vessel for the orb, and one when Steve sings a song to his dog at the end of the film. And even in that second case, I had to force it a little bit. Aside from those two fleeting moments of semi-competent humor, every other attempt evoked in me either a blank reaction or, concerningly often, a groan. At the screening I attended, some people were laughing quite frequently — for whichever reasons, I cannot understand. That illuminates more than anything, in my opinion, the extent of the dearth of anything funny which exists in this movie.
The film’s attempts at drama only compound the misery. Already disadvantaged by the many failed shots at humor, the visibly inept writing means that the supposedly emotional scenes are rendered inert. These moments go by so quickly; they seem to end just as rapidly as they begin, and the dialogue never sounds genuine enough to sound even remotely convincing. And throughout the film, I was so often left baffled by the choices the writers made. So many scenes and lines have an inexplicable quality to them — I frequently asked silently, “What the hell are you doing?”
I have no way of confirming this and I seriously doubt that this is actually the case, but the movie feels like it was truncated a good deal. Some things happen for reasons which are not sufficiently explained or displayed, and some moments which seem important go on to not inform the story in any meaningful way. As for the former gripe, it seems as if Malgosha decides apropos of nothing that Steve has betrayed her, even as Steve insists that he needs the orb. Now, he does say in response to a concern related by one of the four visitors regarding what he’ll do with the orb that he won’t, in fact, give it to her and that he needs it for leverage. But he could be lying, as I think is somewhat implied. And even if he isn’t lying, how does Malgosha know that? She’s in the Nether, completely separated from Steve and his party. Does the same power which informs her of the orb’s arrival in the Overworld also inform her of Steve saying that he won’t give her the orb? And given Steve’s open hostility toward her, did she not anticipate this outcome when she sent him off?
As for the latter complaint (please be warned: I will be going into spoilers here), there’s a scene in the Woodland Mansion during which Henry stares into the eyes of an Enderman, which conveys within him a rather unpleasant vision. In this vision, Steve, Garrett and Natalie excoriate him as a loser, a nuisance and a fool. I was thinking that this scene would find renewed importance later in the story — maybe that, in the climax, Henry’s will to fight would be hindered by a feeling that what he heard in his vision may have been right: that he is a good-for-nothing, that the Overworld really doesn’t need him, and that he is to blame for him and Natalie being stuck in this alien world. But no, this is never mentioned or referenced again. And yet, it is framed as a pivotal moment. Why? Is the fact that Henry subsequently defeats the Enderman in combat meant to symbolize him overcoming his demons? If so, what an underwhelming payoff for Henry’s arc this proves.
But it may actually be fitting for Henry that his arc reaches such an unsatisfactory conclusion, given that he is easily the least enjoyable character in the film to watch. While the writing is partly to blame for that, as Henry is written in a rather annoying and whiny fashion, I do think a lot of that is on the actor, Sebastian Hansen. He’s young and, as far as I can tell, this is his first major film role, so I’ll try to be as nice as I can in assessing his performance. With that said, I can’t give his subpar performance a free pass. His expressions are so often wooden, and his reads possess a distinctly artificial air. He almost looks lost at times, like he doesn’t know what reaction to give to a certain line or situation. Again, I believe this to be more the product of inexperience than anything else, and I think skill may come with age, but Hansen’s current inability to act is, sadly, very distracting. I wish him the best.
The rest of the performances are actually quite decent, though the writing is simply so atrocious that nobody is able to transcend it. Jack Black’s turn may be the one most emblematic of the tragic irony of the film. I really like Jack Black. I think he’s funny and talented. He’s one of the few comedians who doesn’t need particularly great material in order to get a laugh — his delivery so often does it. Bless his heart, you can tell that he’s giving this role everything he has, but the inane writing does him zero favors. Steve is an unfunny character, but this is in no way Jack Black’s fault. Seriously, Jack Black deserves better than this.
The one element of the film which did impress me was the physical and visual faithfulness to the video game exhibited therein. The environments bear a striking resemblance to those found in the game, and I found the way in which the film tackles the game’s unique physics to actually be quite clever. I took pleasure in watching these characters activate redstone devices, and the attention to detail in some areas was genuinely remarkable. If only the script were adequate — perhaps, just perhaps, we could’ve had a good movie here.
There’s also a mildly amusing plot thread which rests outside the main story. Jennifer Coolidge portrays Henry’s school principal, a woman who, having recently gone through a divorce, is desperate to find love. A chance encounter with a Villager from the Overworld — whom she inadvertently hits with her car — leads to dinner, during which she swiftly takes an intense interest in this odd-looking stranger. Her affection for this blocky humanoid entity manifests with such haste that it borders on impulsiveness, but the Villager, though unable to speak English (at least until a mid-credits scene), reciprocates her feelings. I almost wish the film was about this liaison as opposed to the story with which the movie actually concerns itself.
I really shouldn’t have expected more from “A Minecraft Movie”. When I first heard the news that it was in the works, I reasonably surmised that it would be dead on arrival. But, for some reason, maybe I did expect more. Observing the course of its admittedly smart marketing campaign, as well as reading and watching the reactions people had to it, might have convinced me somewhat that it would be good for, if nothing else, precipitating enjoyment from its deficits. Yet, the film’s deficits felt more frustrating than diverting. Regrettably, there is no “so-bad-it’s-good” fun à la Tommy Wiseau’s “The Room” to be derived from this film. Only a feeling of tediousness. At least this tediousness doesn’t feel interminable.