A Minecraft Movie Review

Minecraft has been a cornerstone of gaming since its meteoric rise off the back of a string of YouTube buzz during its Alpha release in 2010. 

In the years since, Minecraft has maintained its status, fueled primarily by its intense popularity with a younger audience. It’s no surprise then, that a movie would eventually find itself in development and, after a few hiccups along the way since plans were first announced in 2014, the movie has finally hit screens around the world.

I didn’t really expect much from A Minecraft Movie but I found myself pleasantly surprised by the family movie. 

I’m Steve

A Minecraft Movie stars Jason Mamoa, Jack Black, Danielle Brooks, Emma Myers and Sebastian Hansen, and sees the characters discovering magical artifacts, The Orb of Dominance and Earth Crystal, that when combined open a portal that transports them to the cube based Overworld. Here they must enlist the help of master builder Steve to find a way home before the piglin ruler Malgosha takes the Orb for herself and uses it to blot out the sun and wage war on the Overworld.

As far as the story goes, it’s simple yet entertaining, using the time tested video game adaptation plot that sees characters transported into an alternate world that resembles the game. It’s kept fairly simple for the benefit of its younger target audience but that didn’t stop it from being a good time, mostly because in the end it feels very much like a mid-2000s Jack Black movie.

Being a Jack Black movie, it has everything you would expect, including frequent little ditties from Black, his signature humor, and the character of Steve feeling not all that removed from Black himself. Despite this, the other characters managed to hold their own.

Playing the character of a washed up arcade champion still attempting to ride the coattails of his victory almost 40 years later, Jason Mamoa has great on screen chemistry with Black and shows that he is capable of being more than the hunky action hero, while young actor Sebastian Hansen holds his own against Mamoa and Black pretty well.

We back in the mines

In terms of adaptations, A Minecraft Movie is actually surprisingly accurate to the Minecraft experience and features an impressive amount of Minecraft things. As someone who has played Minecraft since those early Alpha days it was impressive to see A Minecraft Movie be unafraid to embrace all the things that make Minecraft, well, Minecraft. For those still involved in Minecraft and its community there’s even more to enjoy, from attention to detail in its world, music and sound effects pulled directly from the game,  items, and an abundance of references and memes.  

A Minecraft Movie has seen some controversy in recent days from the spread of a viral trend involving younger fans going wild at certain scenes in the movie, in no part fueled by recent comments from the movie’s director Jared Hess encouraging the trend. Fortunately, this was something I didn’t experience in my viewing of the movie, though my screening did feature a couple of excited tweens enthusiastically clapping at references and participating a little more loudly for some of the more meme’d moments. 

While I watched the movie, my British sensibilities hated every second of it, internally bemoaning the growth of audience participation disrupting my experience. Looking back though, I’m glad that those tweens got the additional excitement of participating in an ultimately harmless manner.

It’s clear that A Minecraft Movie has put a considerable amount of effort into being recognizably Minecraft. Despite the effort put in though, there’s a major aspect of the Movie that I really struggled to get past. The CGI. It’s a huge aspect of the movie and there’s just something a bit off about it that I could never quite move past. There’s a plastic, cartoony, almost play-doh like quality to the CGI of the Overworld and its inhabitants that veers close to the uncanny valley. In an attempt to make things a little more realistic the sharp edges of blocks have been rounded out and everything feels a little too soft and fleshy. 

The verdict

Though a great deal of CGI has been used throughout the movie it also feels as though a large amount of sets and props are real practical effects, which both helps sell much of the realism of the work while also furthering to highlight just how strange everything looks by comparison. 

Ultimately, A Minecraft Movie is an enjoyable couple of hours. There’s nothing here that’s particularly special or that sets it apart from other adaptations than just being a decent adaptation. 

Being that Minecraft is an open world sandbox game with basically no story or characters, there is very little to base an adaptation on. A Minecraft Movie probably does about as well as you can given what it has to work with. Combine that with solid performances, a strong commitment to its source material and decent humor, and A Minecraft Movie ends up as a solid but unremarkable movie. 

Ben Newton Contributor

Ben has been gaming for as long as he can remember, with some of his earliest memories being of playing DOOM with his Dad in the late 90's. His passion for gaming is shared with a passion for writing that he hopes to share by contributing to Smash Jump.