Don Shanahan
The automatic question approaching A Minecraft Movie is universal between the 204 million active players and the outside non-admirers: Can you put a story on something from an open-ended source? Much of Minecraft’s following comes from the freedom of its Creative mode’s “sandbox” nature. There are no disturbances or required goals. It’s you and your endless space to personalize. The closest answer to the question comes from Minecraft’s more popular Survival mode where day-night cycles bring spawning invasive monsters and the need to acquire resources. Still, putting a story together with that peril in mind could be shaped by virtually anything.
Alas, this is IP-dependent Hollywood and Warner Bros. Pictures! If anyone can employ a room of people to throw sugar-honey-iced tea against a wall to see what sticks, it’s them. Starting from a story by Hidden Figures co-writer Allison Schroeder and the Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life’s team of Chris Bowman and Hubbel Palmer, three more polishing screenwriters (The Kings of Summer’s Chris Galletta and the pair of Neil Widener and Gavin James with Now You See Me 3 in the can and Paramount’s Beyblade movie next) embraced the inherent unrestrictedness. Their combined—and semi-genius answer—was the oxymoron of simple convolution.
The assembled mishmash of A Minecraft Movie plays like the internet meme cheering “Why don’t we have both?” Like the Creative mode, the writing team lucidly made a pumped-up inside world following the tried-and-true Minecraft setup and added an outside human one for a framing device. From that extra setting, they fleshed out new characters to put an origin story to something that never had one before and an instigating Survival mode-style adventure to keep things moving. They even bake in the mantra of “creativity is the key to survival” into the dialogue.
Why? Because they could, it’s easy, and both types of paths for A Minecraft Movie were available for interpretation. Thanks to jolly actors committed to the bit and the zeal of scatter-brained unpredictability, A Minecraft Movie will have folks splitting their sides with laughter as fast as blocks are broken and reset for the next swerve and gag.
Essentially, A Minecraft Movie is an origin story for “Steve,” the default male skin of the original 2011 game. Played by the gregarious Jack Black donning the brunette mop, goatee, and signature blue-on-blue ensemble, he starts his life in the human world dreaming of being a legitimate miner in the Gem State of Idaho ever since he was a little boy. When Steve came of age and wasn’t granted a shot at that line of work to avoid a soulless adult life, he ventured into the local mine in the fictional potato chip capital town of Chuglass on his own and found the two-part cubic key that transported him to the Overworld.
There, conducting with the infinite geometric palette before him, Steve made his paradise and defended himself alongside his trusty companion—the tamed wolf Dennis—from the nightly NPC terrors. One territory over in The Nether, an empire of piglins led by the evil Malgosha (voiced by Taika Waititi’s good luck charm Rachel House) has ravaged their realm of gold and resources and moves to invade Steve’s. She seeks the same three-dimensional key Steve used to move between worlds.
Lo and behold, that precious item remained in Chuglass, where it is discovered by burned-out 1989 arcade champion Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison, played by matinee idol beefcake Jason Momoa, running an unsuccessful video game store and personal shrine. When Henry (Sebastian Hansen of Just Mercy), a STEM-savvy new kid in town, activates the key with Garrett, they end up in Overworld. Chasing after them through the same portal are Henry’s big sister Natalie (Wednesday star Emma Myers) and Dawn (The Color Purple’s Oscar-nominated Danielle Brooks), her realtor with a traveling zoo side hustle.
This squad of newcomers, dubbed “roundlings” by Malgosha, bring their wildly diverse skill sets to join Steve’s quest to defeat the mounting invasion. See. It’s like I said: simple convolution.
On several levels, the convolution of A Minecraft Movie can get the better of itself. Since no one other than the most Minecraft devout would watch a 90-odd-minute zen movie of Jack Black building fortresses and houses in Creative mode, the Survival mode plot dominates the time and pace. Like some of the best Pixar movies, enthusiasm can get lost in the constant sprint from one chase and battle to the next. That said, when the movie tries to leave Overworld for a decelerating subplot involving Henry’s vice principal (played by the always-incorrigible Jennifer Coolidge), the result is more of a buzzkill than a recharge. While The Lord of the Rings production designer created many tangible and interactive sets filming in New Zealand and gave Mulan property master Matt Cornelius the coolest job on the film set constructing the many gadgets and weapons, the surrounding VFX and sound mayhem can surge your senses and beat you into submission.
Even amid all of this cinematic cheese in A Minecraft Movie, the affable humor wins you over. Simply put, Jack Black is a national treasure. Re-teaming here with his Nacho Libre director Jared Hess, the soon-to-be-56-year-old actor has long been a king of go-for-broke constancy. The man is always on and never still. Jack’s drastic facial contortions and vocal inflections for his line deliveries are coupled with his dancing, prancing, and posing body language—all emboldened by movement coach Alyx Duncan and Aquaman series stunt coordinator Jon Valera—present a fully unleashed performance from the comedy giant.
Matching Jack Black’s energy with his own shape and stench of cheese is Jason Momoa. His 1980s wardrobe, misused broken Spanish, and dated macho man act hide a cowardly geek looking to become a winner again. This is the actor’s chance to yuk it up in a famil film, and he’s loving it. The only thing louder than Jason’s neon noise made by costume designers Lucy McLay (The Meg) and Amanda Neale (What We Do in the Shadows) is his character’s frequently discharged—and consistently hilarious—guttural shriek of terror. Both he and Jack are flexing and clenching to oversell everything, but, by golly, they’ll look you dead in the eye down the barrel of the camera and squeeze out their cheese without shame.
Speaking of treasures like Jack Black, where the simple-minded half of A Minecraft Movie rings truest is in its age-appropriate morals. Pardon the pun, but the movie did not need to dig deep to find gems in this department. Each character—young, old, round, or cubic—in A Minecraft Movie seeks that personal little slice of happiness or cherished possession they would label a “treasure.” Whether it’s built, poached, or traded, each respective need is clear, attainable, and matched to existing motivations. Even with the presence of the brutish Jason Momoa, there are no overly edgy anti-heroes, sympathetic villain tropes, or nonsensical heel turns.
Needless to say, from the pre-credits exposition dump opening to the post-credits cherry-on-top surprises (do stay all the way to the end like a Marvel movie), the invested Minecraft fans will find much to adore. Like that adorable scene in Finding Neverland when the target demographic of plebian orphan children arrived to sit next to the affluent dressed to the nines to watch the stage debut of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, be sure to watch it with that kind of crowd. Receive that communal experience of fanboys geeking out at the mere mentions of the many slang terms and inside jokes. Soak in their gasps and thrills while composer Mark Motherbaugh (The Lego Movie) churns an bodacious adventure score.
The more difficult people to please were always going to be the neophytes who have never touched the game and don’t know a “grief” from a “spleef.” A Minecraft Movie is asking those newbies to enter and welcome a weird new universe. This energetic family movie proudly opens its doors to all comers (and wallets) where no prior knowledge is really necessary. Thanks to the exuberant cast and the kind of contagious entertainment they dispensed, you may just come to love something you didn’t know a lick about 101 minutes earlier.
