About an hour and a half into WB’s new Minecraft movie, in theaters now, I realized that I was really bored. The movie was happening in front of me on a big screen. I could see Jack Black and others dancing about in CG worlds, but the moment it left the screen and entered my eyeballs, it slipped back out of my brain. I had to force myself to absorb and comprehend what was happening. Luckily for me, not much actually happens in this bad movie.
A Minecraft Movie is a (sort of) live-action adaptation of Minecraft. But how do you adapt a video game with no real story or characters into a 100-minute movie? The answer is to lazily make Minecraft another world that real human beings travel to and then eventually leave. Truly, the hallmark of any bad video game movie is when it can be summed up with “Yeah, it’s like that 1980s Mario Bros. movie with Dennis Hopper.”
But hey, I can stomach a lazy setup if the rest of the movie wins me over. And early on, things were looking good. The first 20 minutes or so of this movie contain some genuinely great jokes that made me and the rest of the theater laugh. We get to meet some of the characters, like the young, awkward Henry and his older sister, Natalie, who has become his mother-figure after their real mom died. The two of them end up in a small town in Idaho because it was their mom’s dying wish. Thanks, mom! As this happens, we are introduced to Jason Momoa’s washed-up video game pro who owns a game store and is a huge loser.
Also, Danielle Brooks is there as Dawn, a character who spends most of the movie doing nothing, saying little, and being wasted. After a fun introduction to the characters, including Jenifer Coolidge’s surprisingly horny and very funny side character Marlene, our four main heroes are zapped into the world of Minecraft and the movie collapses because Jack Black’s Steve becomes a part of the story.
Can one actor save a movie? Maybe. Can one actor ruin a movie? Yes. And that’s what Jack Black does in A Minecraft Movie. I’m not sure what the hell Jack Black is doing in this movie. I don’t mean why he was cast—he’s a funny, popular dude with a solid track record—but I mean, what is the idea behind his performance in A Minecraft Movie? In fairness to Black, Steve is a nothing character in the game, just the name of its default skin. So he and the writers and director had to basically create Steve’s personality from the ground up. Yet, what they all decided to do was make Steve one of the most annoying characters ever to appear in a movie.
Jack Black is dialed up to 12 at all times in this film. Every moment Black is on the screen, he is screaming, yelling, dancing, doing weird voices, or using slang. Sometimes, he’s doing all of that at once. It doesn’t work, and within 20 minutes or so of him being a part of the movie, the kids in my theater stopped laughing at his behavior. His performance in A Minecraft Movie is like someone doing an impersonation of Jack Black based entirely on a YouTube compilation of his “Wackiest Moments.” It’s not only annoying and tiring; it’s also not funny. It also makes it hard to connect with Steve, who is one of the main characters in this movie and one of the few with an actual character arc.
I almost left the movie early when, at one point, Jack Black, readying his newfound friends for battle, says: “We need to mine. We need to craft. We need to Minecraft.” Fuck off. I’ve only got so many hours in my life, and I don’t need them wasted.
As for what actually happens in A Minecraft Movie, it’s got the most basic plot involving an evil person with no personality or interesting quirks who wants to destroy everything. But to do that, they need a shiny MacGuffin, and guess what? Our intrepid heroes need that same MacGuffin to get back home. Solving this conflict involves an hour of running and walking around CG worlds that look like Minecraft if you installed an ugly, realistic texture pack. Occasionally fights happen or conversations between characters occur, but the movie doesn’t linger on any one part long enough for you to care or develop any attachment to anything.
Technically, the CG in this movie is impressive. Real characters are perfectly integrated into the digital world. And when a Minecraft character leaves the video game world and enters the real world, he is seamlessly incorporated into the live-action sets. Good stuff. Too bad all the designs are hideous and don’t match up with the actual sound effects ripped from the game, which feel like the filmmakers attempting to remind you that, yes, this is still Minecraft. Promise.
The best part of this movie is a subplot involving Coolidge’s vice principal character, who is newly divorced and falls in love with one of the Minecraft villagers who leaves his world and enters our own. Every single time the movie cut away to show us more of that story, I was disappointed that I wasn’t watching a movie about them instead. It’s also heavily implied that she fucks the villager. Enjoy the movie, kids! (And enjoy that amazing voice cameo at the end. Seriously, I was stunned. Won’t spoil it here. But’s it perfect.)
Now, I know some will say I’m being too harsh. This is a movie for kids, after all. So what? I’ve seen plenty of good kids movies. The Lego Batman Movie is one of the best DC movies ever made. It’s really funny, has strong character moments, a good plot, and doesn’t lazily dump Lego characters into the real world.
A Minecraft Movie just isn’t very good. Will kids like it? Sure, but generally kids also aren’t the most discerning audience, either, and that’s fine. I’m not saying kids can’t enjoy this movie. I’m just saying it’s a bad movie if you are an adult looking for something funny that doesn’t contain the worst Jack Black performance ever committed to celluloid. I’d recommend people go watch School of Rock and play Minecraft with some buddies instead of watching this crap.
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