These characters are clearly confused as to how this movie was greenlit. Photo courtesy of Entertainment Weekly.
HARRISON PRYOR | STAFF REPORTER | hrpryor@butler.edu
SAM DEMIS | STAFF REPORTER | sademis@butler.edu
“Film Fanatics” explores Hollywood’s recent releases, cherished classics and everything in between. These thought-provoking reviews invite fresh perspectives and weigh whether a film deserves attention — or if it’s best left in the past. Read on to find out what our writers think of this week’s film.
Minecraft brought its endless worlds of infinite creativity to the gaming scene in 2011, and it remains, to this day, the best-selling game of all time. The game’s sense of total freedom and iconic cube-only aesthetic have cemented its legacy as one of the greats.
Unfortunately, “A Minecraft Movie” has arrived to tarnish that legacy.
“A Minecraft Movie” opened with $157 million domestically on a budget of $150 million and has broken the record for the largest domestic opening for a movie based on a video game. Somehow.
The film is too bad to even qualify as enjoyably awful. It is a painful watch that leaves viewers wondering when it will end. A lackluster story, abysmal dialogue and confusing editing plague this disaster-piece.
The movie begins with an overly lengthy exposition by Steve — played by Jack Black — who will eventually become the bumbling guide for a mismatched pack of losers who find themselves trapped in the mysterious Overworld. What follows is a frantically paced adventure full of tongue-in-cheek references and fan service.
One of the only things “A Minecraft Movie” did right was its portrayal of the game’s sense of freedom. The characters quickly grasp that they can build anything they want out of the blocky terrain, and Steve’s eccentric creations perfectly emulate the feeling of a lived-in Minecraft server.
That is, sadly, where this movie’s high points end.
The movie’s comedy is entirely reliant on the fact that the world of Minecraft is an unrealistic video game fantasy. Rather than relying on clever set-ups about the rules of the game, most of the “jokes” are just Steve announcing the name of an item or location.
It is as if the writers thought, ‘This is funny because it’s from a video game, and video games are inherently silly.’ This style of comedy greatly detracts from the experience; it is an impossible movie to take seriously compared to something like “The Lego Movie,” which felt much more earnest in its message despite its sense of humor.
Ian Eldridge, a sophomore creative media and entertainment major, expressed his disappointment in the film’s writing choices.
“I knew going in that it would be a bad movie, but I was hoping it would be an enjoyable bad,” Eldridge said. “My friends and I have wanted a movie about Minecraft since 2012, and now that we finally have it, we thought, ‘This is really bad.’ The plot was horrible and the writing was awful, which was funnier than most of the actual jokes.”
While the physical sets and props are mostly well-crafted, the various CGI creatures fall deep into the uncanny valley. Applying realistic flesh and fur textures to cubic animals and monsters often makes them downright gross to look at, especially the spiders and humanoid villagers. This becomes especially apparent when they share the screen with the live-action characters, who feel out of place in more than one way.
John Welch, a senior computer science and electrical engineering major, initially had high hopes for the characters’ personal story arcs.
“The brother and sister duo move to this new town and start [a new life], but they have very minimal time to themselves where their characters are developed and you get their backstory,” Welch said. “I feel like if [the film] had spent … one or two more days’ worth of scenes with them, I would have been a lot more invested in them.”
Though the gold-obsessed Piglins are true to the game’s lore, their sorceress queen Malgosha, General Chungus — an outdated meme reference — and her other minions are vaguely based around characters from Minecraft’s spin-off games. These spin-offs are linear with minimal freedom, which may explain why Malgosha — voiced by Rachel House — wants to do away with all creativity.
Sophomore strategic communication major Allison Pfefferkorn acknowledged that a game-accurate antagonist would be a double-edged sword.
“I do see how, if they were sticking to villains from the game, it would have been harder to write with,” Pfefferkorn said. “The ‘villains’ in the [main] game were animals, not characters. I think a lot of people would have been happier if they did that, but I also think it would have been harder to formulate a kids’ movie plot around that.”
Director Jared Hess — who also voiced General Chungus — managed to reference his other works like “Napoleon Dynamite” and “Nacho Libre,” the latter of which also starred Jack Black. However, those films are so much older than and different from “A Minecraft Movie” that these moments feel more tongue-in-cheek than anything else.
Despite the movie’s themes of imaginative problem-solving, most conflicts were resolved through well-choreographed yet simple combat. The characters waste every opportunity to build their way out of jams and instead opt to fight to the tune of generic pop rock.
Adding to the uninspired music, Steve repeatedly brings the story to a screeching halt by singing immersion-breaking songs. This tracks with Black’s history of musical comedy, but it does not justify it.
“The songs caught me completely off guard; I was not expecting Steve to start singing at all,” Eldridge said. “I did think it was cool that they incorporated ‘Pigstep’, which is from the game’s soundtrack. I was pleasantly surprised to hear it.”
“A Minecraft Movie” is Jack Black’s third video game movie in recent years, though there is no discernible trend with how successful they are. “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” was the highest-grossing animated movie of 2023, whereas “Borderlands” barely scraped the top 100 movies of 2024 globally. Without fail, each movie fails to recognize the game as its own form of art and dials up the silliness even beyond these already unserious franchises.
Black is a known video game fan, which may explain why he is so drawn to these roles. The failure of “Borderlands” and “A Minecraft Movie” may spell the end of his adaptation aspirations. Only time will tell if his days of being known as a versatile comedic actor are over and the age of being “the video game guy” has begun.
