‘A Minecraft Movie’ review: Film adaptation lacks creativity of the game

02 Apr 2025, 12:00 by Soren Andersen · The Seattle Times

Movie review

No need to SHOUT!

Talking to you, Jack Black. And you, Jason Momoa. And especially you, Jared Hess.

Based on the evidence of “A Minecraft Movie,” one gets the sense that the script’s dialogue was written in ALL CAPS, and director Hess instructed his players to say them loud, and then louder still.

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On your mark. Get set. Howl. Give those vocal cords a workout. And while you’re at it, race around as if you’ve been set on fire.

That will get people’s attention.

And so the world’s best-selling video game of all time (we’re told) comes to the big scream, uh, I mean, screen.

It’s visually distinctive, closely mimicking the game’s trademark look with square-shaped elements being the building blocks of its characters, buildings, backgrounds, vegetation.

Oh, look. There’s a square fuzzy bee, flitting and buzzing. And here’s a blocky panda family. Aww. Cute. And here are hordes of befanged monstrous creatures threatening to make mayhem on human visitors. Not so cute.

And all are CG rendered. Not Black and Momoa, however, or any of the other principal human characters played by Emma Myers, Danielle Brooks, Sebastian Hansen and Jennifer Coolidge.

Through the Minecraft world they run, trying to suss out just what the heck is going on. “This place makes no sense,” the fuddled Myers declares at one point. “I have no idea what I’m doing,” she further squeaks.

Her character and Hansen’s are brother and sister. She’s his protector trying to shield him from high school bullies.

Momoa is playing a shaggy one-time video game master whose glory days were the late ’80s. He’s gone to seed now but remains a legend in his own mind. With his ripped jeans and a garish pink fringed jacket, he looks kind of like a bedraggled bum.

Brooks plays the proprietor of a mobile petting zoo riding around with an alpaca in the back seat of her car. All are misfits of one kind or another in the real (which is to say, non-Minecraft) world.

The main character is a fellow named Steve, played by an extravagantly bearded Black. Eyes aglitter and overflowing with manic enthusiasm, he becomes the guide to the other characters, who enter the Minecraft world via a magic portal. He gives them the skinny as to how this world operates. It’s a place where, if you can imagine something, you can create it using the world’s basic blocks.

Invented by Mojang, a gaming studio in Sweden (and later acquired by Redmond’s Microsoft), creativity is the key to the game. Let the mind run free, and make one’s fantasies real. The possibilities are endless, which is key to the game’s popularity. Any number can play, and millions around the world do.

Director Hess, who made his name with his first movie, “Napoleon Dynamite” (he previously directed Black in the 2006 feature “Nacho Libre”), and a herd of screenwriters have crafted a clunky mess lacking in genuine imagination.

Among the scattered bits is Coolidge, who plays a tangential character who runs down a Minecraft fellow who winds up in the real world and is promptly accidentally hit by Coolidge in her car. No harm, though, and she forms a romantic association with the victim. This, as the Myers character might remark, makes no sense.

Hess’ direction lacks the off-center charm of his signature picture, and so he falls back on standard Hollywood tropes of people running and screaming amid explosions.

Kids will likely be diverted by the colorful excess of “A Minecraft Movie,” but fans of the game may feel it misses the mark. More creativity, please.

“A Minecraft Movie” ★★½ (out of four)
With Jack Black, Jason Momoa, Emma Myers, Danielle Brooks, Sebastian Hansen, Jennifer Coolidge. Directed by Jared Hess from a screenplay by Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer, Neil Widener, Gavin James and Chris Galletta. 101 minutes. Rated PG for violence/action, language, suggestive/rude humor and some scary images. Opens April 3 at multiple theaters.