Crafty
Mojang’s ragingly popular building block game gets the screen treatment. How do you build ‘Ka-ching!’?
A Minecraft MOvie
Director: Jared Hess • Writers: Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer, Neil Widener, Gavin James, Chris Galletta, based on the Mojang Studios game
Starring: Jason Momoa, Jack Black, Sebastian Hansen, Emma Myers, Danielle Brooks, Jennifer Coolidge
USA • 1hr 40mins
Opens Hong Kong April 3 • I
Grade: B-
One thing is certain with regards to A Minecraft Movie’s probable fate: Minecraft is the bestselling sandbox video game of all time, moving over 300 million copies since its release in 2011 – 100 million ahead of Grand Theft Auto V, five times as many as Super Mario Bros. and 10 times Elden Ring – and to this day has amost 170 million monthly players. To say it has a solid built-in audience that cuts across age is an understatement. Throw a litte (a lot?) of fan service, some relatively popular movie stars doing their “thing” (Jack Black) or having fun with their persona (Jason Momoa), and some decent VFX into a fleet, under-two-hours soup and chances are A Minecraft Movie is going to be a hit. Exhibit A: The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Minecraft is giving off major Super Mario vibes.
And the 2023 Mario movie (which also featured Black) is a good benchmark for this. That Aaron Horvath/Michael Jelenic contraption was laser focused on what made the game such a hit, and unapologetically leaned into those elements, treating them as fact. Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre (starring Black) director Jared Hess feels like a vaguely absurdist gun-for-hire – his bizarre sensibilites come in flashes rather than underpin the whole story – running through the motions at setting up the concept as efficiently as possible in order to deliver the blocky action everyone’s waiting for. There are a few “Heh heh” moments thanks (mostly) to Jennifer Coolidge in between Black’s ADHD recitations of “dialogue” that demanded five (!) writers, and Momoa is fun as an ’80s-trapped, past-his-prime loser (yeah, Momoa, but that’s the magic of the movies). Nothing in A Minecraft Movie is going to convert non-players (of which I am one) but neither does it alienate them. Die-hards, however, are likely to have a good time.
It could be so much worse
The quintet of scribes took a huge cue from Ghostbusters: Afterlife and vomited up a totally cutting-edge story about Henry (Sebastian Hansen, dull as dishwater) and his sister and legal guardian Natalie (Emma Myers) moving to itty bitty Chuglass, Idaho after their mother dies; there is zero mention of dad. Natalie takes a job at the potato factory, and Henry is the kinda sorta nerdy new kid who can’t make friends. He accidentally falls into the alternate universe Overworld after finding a glowing cube that opens a portal at the retro video shop run by washed-up gaming champion Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison (Momoa). That everyone refers to the cube as The Orb is one of the film’s better gags. Meanwhile, in the Overworld, OG player Steve (Black, in full Black mode), his pet block wolf Dennis and the dazzling, cubic fantasyland are under threat from failed artist Malghosha (Maori vet Rachel House, turning in the best performance) and her Netherworld pig army. Henry, Natalie, Garrett and for some reason their real estate agent Dawn (Danielle Brooks) wind up on a series of adventures and quests to get them home and to save the Overworld.
Because no one wants to build a considered argument anymore, the blazing headlines out there in the vein of “Minecraft is an absolute disaster” and other equally tempered clickbait are, of course, hyperbole. A Minecraft Movie is… fine. It is not terrible; it is not a disaster. The cast knows what they’re doing and sticks with the plan. It’s more guilty of being unambititious, safe product that’s a functional 100-minute diversion than a dense meditation on creativity. There’s no mystery: Imagination should be valued and nourished, and it’s much easier to destroy shit than it is to create. Moving on. If you want more, head to The Brutalist. Ironically, there’s not a great deal of building and creating in a movie based on a game whose raison d’être is making stuff. But that’s a game that doesn’t demand narrative. This is a movie that does, and it’s the series of loosely connected set pieces we all expected. Myers and Brooks are underwritten and underused, and it can be hard on the eyes. But there’s a bright, colourful palette to appeal to littler audiences, and Jemaine Clement (as one of Malghosha’s henchpigs), Matt Berry (as an Overworld peacenik who wanders into Chuglass) and Coolidge (as Henry’s vice principal who winds up dating the peacenik) wring comedy gold from their material. A Minecraft Movie’s biggest flaw – and possibly its greatest strength – is Black. As usual, how much of Jack Black’s Jack Blackisms you can take – and after the gawdawful Borderlands, that’s not much – will ultimately determine how much of this first entry (I’ll take this bet) you enjoy.