The story of the great Steve (Jack Black) begins where all young boys’ adventures begin, with wanting to dig a hole. While life got in the way, some decades later as grown man, Steve took life by the balls, and he dug that hole! When Steve did, he found a shiny glowing cube and a shiny sleeve for that cube. When he put them together, wouldn’t you know it, but he was transported to another cube-filled dimension!
‘The Overworld’ is a place where anything is possible, and you can create whatever your heart desires. But it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows as the evil pig woman Malgosha (Rachel House) rules ‘The Nether’. A dimension where there’s no creativity, only desire for the mining of gold ore. With her intent to spread to the Overworld, Steve does the only thing he can think of to protect the shiny things, he sends them back to the real world.
But if he thought that would be the end of it, he was mistaken. This tesseract falls into the hands of an unlikely band of strangers. A troublemaking dreamer, Henry (Sebastian Hansen) and his stressed sister Natalie (Emma Myers), both dealing with their recent sea change, plus their estate agent/mobile zoo manager, Dawn (Danielle Brooks) and former 1980s superstar gamer, Garrett (Jason Momoa). The four are sucked into this world with all its wonders and dangers. To survive, they’ll need to both mine AND craft like their lives depended on it, because they pretty much do!
You don’t even need to have ever played the insanely popular crafting videogame Minecraft to know about it. The digital building blocks allow its players to engage their inner architect, creating massive structures within its magical world.
So, what kind of story can ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ director Jared Hess craft in A Minecraft Movie? Seemingly, not very much of one at all. This isn’t always the case, but when I see a film has more credited screenwriters than principal characters, I tend to lower my expectations. A Minecraft Movie, despite the sheer number of creative minds behind it, fails to tell much of a story at all.
A Minecraft Movie doesn’t do much to set itself apart or find a unique way to bring the world of its popular videogame to the big screen, nor does it do anything with its characters which are generally basic. Henry‘s story of a creative child finally being able to express himself is already simple, but characters Natalie and Dawn are so underwritten and absent at times, it feels like they’re the product of later rewrites to inject some more faces into the mix.
Now, with all that criticism out of the way, it may be a surprise to hear that A Minecraft Movie is incredibly successful at what it sets out to achieve. Kids are already going to enjoy this movie but if they play Minecraft, then they’re going to absolutely LOVE it!
The secret is that as an adventure set in the world of Minecraft, this movie feels completely immersive. It is simply wall to wall references, to appearances of characters, places, foods, materials, weapons, monsters, treasures, armour, gimmicks, Easter eggs and gameplay mechanics! Things which will mean nothing to an outsider, but I can’t deny the excitement and interest I saw on the faces of the patrons at my screening. Jumping up and down at the recognition of something that they’ve been playing with their entire lives.
The actual world of A Minecraft Movie is crafted with believably solid CGI. Although, it’s obvious that the actors were often staring at nothing, with fight scenes displaying them mostly flailing around blindly, with enemies being added later on. Jared Hess may be inexperienced at directing his cast in completely artificial environments, but the visual effects team have done an incredible job.
There was much hubbub over Jack Black‘s appearance in the trailer for A Minecraft Movie with fears he was simply playing himself in a blue shirt. This is exactly the case… but it isn’t a bad thing by any means. A Minecraft Movie is focused very much on its humour, but especially the energy of the rotund rocker. As a longtime fan of Jack Black, it was impossible to not find myself smiling at the personality and energy that he injects into a film, which at times is seriously in need of it.
The other surprising high point is Jason Momoa, who turns his tough guy image on its head, able to play things up for laughs as more of a goofy clown than ever before, and he’s particularly entertaining to watch. So too is it the charming bromance which grows between Black’s Steve and Momoa’s Garrett. The connection between the rocker-miner and the rocker-gamer is a match made in movie heaven.
While A MineCraft Movie may have its shortcomings, it’s still a visual feast which Black and Momoa bring infectious fun to.