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Minecraft Movie… Why’s it “*A* Minecraft Movie“, and not “The…“?
Anyhoo, for the game, since kids are playing, I always figured that the character of Steve was a young boy, but in the minds of Warner Bros, it’s a severely-overweight 55-year-old man.
For want a plot, as a kid, Steve wants to be a miner, but is too young. When he’s older, and portrayed by Jack Black, he enters the Overworld with the help of magic items Orb of Dominance and the Earth Crystal, gets joined by a dog he calls Dennis, for some reason, and lives his life without humans.
Before I get into the rest of it… The Overworld? To me, as a kid, that was from Oliver In The Overworld, a bizarre collection of songs from Freddie And the Dreamers, where Freddie Garity went to sleep and ended up this place, having conversations and singing songs with various pieces of ancient machinery. I’ve still got the album, as well, even if I haven’t got a record player. I did once buy one on Amazon, but returned it as you can only Bluetooth music from a device TO the player – so it comes out of its crappy speaker, as opposed to sending the music FROM the player to my amp, so I can hear it properly.
Anyway, back to this, and despite being the main character, Black’s name comes below Jason Momoa‘s in the credits. I guess they consider him the bigger star, even after 2023’s Aquaman movie.
Momoa takes the role of past-it Billy Mitchell-style ‘video game legend’ Garrett ‘The Garbage Man’ Garrison, who once beat a videogame, 36 years ago. Still obsessed with spending tons of money on retro junk, he’s drawn to a 1978 Atari Cosmos console up for auction… which is a nice mock-up, to the point where I actually want one… and no doubt, someone will make it on Etsy!
However, in his case, the box is empty, apart from an orb.
So, the plot is trying to find a way to cajole random members of the public into going into the Overworld together, including brother and sister, Henry (Sebastian Hansen) and Natalie (Emma Myers – Girl In The Basement, Wednesday), the latter of which spends the film wearing grandma’s curtains. Seriously, who dressed her character?!
For those two, their mum has been fridged, so they’re all alone.
For diversity reasons, we also get Dawn (Danielle Brooks), who’s a grown adult, yet seems to have her hair shoved back like a 10-year-old girl with a headband. Again, who’s doing the hair for this film?! Was it done in the dark?!
For a fair while, we get ‘Minecraft 101’, showing how elements are put together and turned into other items, which is useful for people like me who’ve barely played it.
Even though the group apparently need to find this item and that item to escape (well, another an Earth Crystal, apparently), an old villager called Nitwit (later voiced by Matt Berry – The Wild Robot) just seems to be able to walk back out into reality, regardless, meets Henry’s Vice Principal, Marlene (Jennifer Coolidge – Promising Young Woman), and gets on oddly famously with her.
They may as well just called her Stifler’s Mom in the cast list and had done with it. Plus, while they’re dating, have them go to the cinema, again with her ‘dropping something on the floor’, and then seeing Nitwit’s carton of popcorn bob up and down… okay, so it’s a PG-certificate…
Still, they do have a restaurant scene with a decent joke where the waiter asks them, “Are you finished?”, and she replies – thinking he’s referring to Nitwit, “No, I think he’s Swedish”.
As for the 3D in this film, it’s initially pointless, but when it gets into a chase scene later on – including with a minecart going into the canyon – it’s actually pretty good, but it shows that they should’ve implemented it in the same way as TRON Legacy, where the real-world scenes stayed as 2D, and only the ‘inside the game’ scenes (which was most of it), were 3D. That would also help differentiate between the two worlds.
But… One thing I was really dreading in this film was what’s become known as the ‘Chicken Jockey’ effect, where kids scream and shout, seemingly at every random line that’s uttered by most of the characters. In the cases of disturbed, American youth, they also throw their popcorn and drink all over the place at the same time. This stuff isn’t cheap if you buy it on-site, but then they don’t care, because all they’re interested in is making a video for Tiktok, because they’re morons.
Thankfully, I had a better experience, audience-wise – with no screaming/clapping/quotes/etc, albeit not perfect, but what happened will make you want to scream!
It was a 3D performance on a Monday, at 5.40pm. Quite a sparse audience, and the closest other members were a woman and her son, about 3 seats to my left. Just before the film started, they moved to the same seats in the row behind me.
A few times I heard a bit of chat between them, but then it went on longer. I shushed them, but got no response. A bit later, I had to do it again a couple of times. The kid turned his head, but the mother wasn’t taking me on at all. I figured I was fighting a losing battle, but thankfully, the last hour is almost 100% noise.
Once the post-credit scene was over and the lights came on, they were still sat there. I gathered my rubbish up to put in the staff member’s sack that they were holding, looked at the mother and plainly asked, “Why were you talking during the film?”
She had the most bemused look on her face that I could be asking such a question, and replied, “We’re allowed to talk??”
I said, “Not in a cinema when the film’s playing”. She just repeated what she’d said, and I realised she was like a broken robot with a sense of entitlement and one of the most ignorant gets on the planet. She really did believe that she was in the right!
Overall, so there’s a few laughs in this, but mostly, I was going to tick another one off the list. A Minecraft Movie is FAR from a great one, but I didn’t feel any desire to leave. However, I did want to drown those two in their own self-indulgence.
Whatever your thoughts, though, a sequel is assured. The budget was $150m, and to date, it’s taken $557m at the box office, worldwide. Disney must be holding their heads in their hands at this, given the expensive flops that are Snow White and Doctor Who.
NOTE: There is also a mid- AND post-credits scene. See the video below.
Minecraft Movie is in cinemas now, and is available to pre-order on 4K Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD, ahead of its release date TBA.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 101 minutes
Release date: April 4th 2025
Studio: Warner Bros
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Rating: 3/10
Director: Jared Hess
Producers: Jon Berg, Cale Boyter, Vu Bui, Roy Lee, Jill Messick, Jason Momoa, Mary Parent, Torfi Frans Olafsson
Writer: Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer, Neil Widener, Gavin James, Chris Galletta
Music: Mark Mothersbaugh
Cast:
Garrett ‘The Garbage Man’ Garrison: Jason Momoa
Steve: Jack Black
Henry: Sebastian Hansen
Natalie: Emma Myers
Dawn: Danielle Brooks
Vice Principal Marlene: Jennifer Coolidge
Malgosha (voice): Rachel House
Malgosha (Creature Performer): Allan Henry
Young Steve: Bram Scott-Breheny
Young Garrett: Moana Williams
Daryl / Bruce (voice): Jemaine Clement
General Chungus (voice): Jared Hess
Nitwit (voice): Matt Berry
Alex Double: Alice May Connolly
Alex: Kate McKinnon
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.