by Nick Ferro, Contributing Writer
As a child of the ‘80s and ‘90s, you would think that low-res games that with nothing in terms of story would appeal to me. You would also think that as someone who spent 12 years consistently building a town in The Simpsons: Tapped Out until they shut down the servers, building and creating games would be also right up my alley. However, for some reason, when it comes to Minecraft, watching my kids play it sends me into an extreme executive dysfunction crashout, triggering an intense dislike of the game. It doesn’t help that they created an adventure mode that my kids have no interest in playing, and a separate dungeon crawler game which they also have no interest in owning. To me, Minecraft is great for creatives who want to spend hours building and creating, but it isn’t something I want to experience myself. So when a movie was announced, my kids all freaked out with excitement, and I had the frightening realization that I would have to take them to see it.
Unlike the game, A Minecraft Movie has a story. A really weird story about an orphaned brother, Henry (Sebastian Hansen), and sister, Natalie (Emma Myers), who discover and become trapped in a world of blocky creation with their realtor, Dawn (Danielle Brooks), and a random local vintage video game store owner, Garrett (Jason Mamoa). While there, they meet Steve (Jack Black), a man who has spent years in this world, and he becomes their guide. The only way to escape this world is to combine a special cube (amusingly called the orb) with a special box to create a tesseract-looking thing, which opens the portal back to reality. However, they are being pursued by an evil big lady, Malgosha (Rachel House), and her evil army of evil pig people, because they also want the “orb” to do evil things that are evil. Riveting, am I right? Oh, and for some reason Jennifer Coolidge falls in love with a random villager from the Minecraft world, who makes it to the real world before the portal closes.
This movie was not for me; however, my middle school-aged daughter has not stopped repeating all of the viral quotes from the movie like a robot stuck in an endless feedback loop. Phrases like “I am Steve!” or “chicken jockey,” which she didn’t find funny during the “film” itself, but are now HILARIOUS to her because all of her friends are much more keyed into social media. I can certainly understand wanting to see a movie for the virality of internet discourse. A Minecraft Movie reminds me of a kids’ version of Morbius, in that it has become more of a joke to be liked ironically than anything else. Only the question is, did the filmmakers go into this project with the hope that this is what they were creating, or, like Morbius, did this happen completely by accident? I truly don’t know, but when you reteam the director of Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre with Jack Black, it does seem that the movie might have been trying to be intentionally insane.
Which brings me to the performances. Black and Momoa are absolutely unhinged throughout this movie. A task that I can only assume was achieved because the content was incredibly lacking in substance. They are both giving it their all, never wavering from that mission, which I can appreciate. When you get full commitment from your actors, the movie is going to benefit from the entertainment value of their star power, and there is no doubt in my mind that these two are stars.
A Minecraft Movie is not going to be for everyone, but it certainly is making a splash at the box office, so it clearly has found it’s audience. I hesitate to say that it barely meets the qualifications of being an actual movie, because sometimes you don’t need to make sense in order to be someone’s favorite. What I find interesting is that A Minecraft Movie and The Electric State came out within a few weeks of each other, and both movies, to me, are on the same level in terms of quality. However, A Minecraft Movie felt like it was being made with care and effort. It’s going for something, and just because I didn’t like it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t achieve its goals. Whereas The Electric State is cynically trying to be a smash hit simply by casting every big-name actor and throwing more money than was necessary. Somehow, these two movies are the same but completely different. Although, it is an interesting irony that A Minecraft Movie is about the power of pure creation, and is at the same time an IP-driven cash grab with nothing original to be seen. Unless you count Black and Momoa riding a jetpack with their naughty bits in each other’s faces…
I do not recommend anyone see A Minecraft Movie — you will feel dumber afterwards if you do. But you know yourself better than anyone, so if you think that this movie looks fun, go for it. I am sure that my kids will be watching it on repeat when it hits streaming, and I am positive that it will be getting a sequel. So if you yearn for the mines, as the children do, then have fun and punch all the trees you can find, to your heart’s content!
Rating: Didn’t Like It
A Minecraft Movie is currently playing in theaters
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