'A Minecraft Movie' Review
It's crude, incredibly stupid, too childish for adults and too adult for children. And somehow has an interesting, sincere heart underneath it all.
For years now, there have been rumors that the popular video game Minecraft was getting a movie adaptation. These rumors were often dismissed as jokes; after all, how exactly are you going to turn a sandbox building game into a film? Joke castings popped up all over the internet, fans memed and speculated, but then the rumors were confirmed, laughably stupid trailers were released, and a date was set. A Minecraft Movie was a real thing, and it would be hitting theaters in April 2025.
It sure was stupid. It sure felt like a collaboration between two mega-corporations, Warner Brothers and Microsoft (who own Minecraft). It sure did lean into the post-Minions humor that seems to be the only thing studios think kids can handle these days.
And yet it was not soulless. In fact, underneath all the slop, this movie has a heart.
This is going to be a positive review of A Minecraft Movie. But I’m going to have to put all sorts of caveats on that first.
Before we get to the good, we have to wade through the bad and the ugly. The humor had four modes:
Jack Black says something in a funny voice
Jason Momoa says something utterly inane in a deadpan voice
Anybody else looks at a Minecraft-y thing and says “what the heck?”
Insider jokes that you have to have played the game to understand
The film cycles through these 4 jokes many, many times and it gets repetitive and exhausting. Many of Jack Black’s lines have been obsessively shared on TikTok, becoming what the kids these days call “brain rot”. And brain rot they truly are. There is very little clever humor here; indeed, the most astonishing thing about many of the jokes was just how stupid and obvious they were willing to be. I pine wistfully for the days when kids movies were actually clever and witty, entertaining kids while not talking down to them. Even worse, I though many of the jokes—and especially the homoerotic overtones of the relationship between Black’s Steve and Momoa’s Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrisson—to be completely inappropriate for children. I would not suggest that parents allow kids under 14 to see this film, which is not great for a film ostensibly aimed at 8-12 year olds. Director Jared Hess has never before made a kids’ film, and has often used rather crude and absurd humor as a calling card in his movies. A Minecraft Movie, in my judgement, is no different in this regard.
However, as Philotheo says on Letterboxd, “Jared Hess’ currency is sincerity within the absurd”. As weird, as stupid, as obvious as this film can be, there is underneath it all a sincere and dare I say beautiful heart. A Minecraft Movie recognizes and acknowledges some of the most common lost souls drifting through our current American landscape and offers them hope through creativity, beauty, and community. Our diverse cast of human characters include: a burnt-out corporate stooge starved for adventure; a man-child still stuck in the glory days of the 80s; two parentless children forced to grow up early and fend for themselves; and a gig worker who has to run several different hustles to make ends meet. The movie does not mock these people but shows them true sympathy, giving them a weird kind of dignity in the midst of their absurd antics once they are sucked into the Minecraft world. Hess shows that he loves these people and genuinely cares to pull those like them out of their mediocrity.
A Minecraft Movie—somehow—offers hope to those wandering in the American wasteland by challenging them to use their talents and creativity to forge authentic communities and better their own lives and those of their fellow pilgrims. As weird and absurd and stupid as it is, there is something bizarrely inspiring about this film that keeps me from writing it off as the latest studio cash-in on a popular property. That it is, no doubt; but there’s nothing cynical, nothing mean-spirited about it. It exudes a sincerity and genuine love of neighbor that despite all its faults I couldn’t help but enjoy and, in a strange way, admire it. I am in no way sorry that I went to see A Minecraft Movie this weekend.
I’m just not really sure I’d actually recommend it to anyone else.