For a film that constantly insists its world is one of boundless creative potential and pure imagination, it's almost impressive how painfully uninspired A Minecraft Movie is. It may yearn for the mines, but you'll merely wish for death to end its misery. Sure, it makes references galore to the video game and the many in-jokes that have been made over the years since it released (the "yearn for the mines" bit being one of the funniest, yet it still lands awkwardly right out of the gate here). However, the movie about Minecraft never captures the creative spirit the game represents. Yes, making a narrative out of a sandbox game means you can't just roam about and make stuff, but the clunky one we get saddled with here leaves no room for any genuine fun. Despite all the times we're told that characters can do basically anything in the blocky worlds of Minecraft, the movie not only never follows through on this, it also overexplains everything else to such a degree it grows exhausting. It's an unimaginative "adaptation"and an unfunny cash grab that feels obligatory. It strives to be an adventure comedy though its hollow references supplant actual clever gags or a sense of play.
This is a shame as director Jared Hess, who made his feature debut with the 2004 independent comedy Napoleon Dynamite, is a distinct voice who gets completely smothered under a stiff screenplay that oddly seems to tangentially call back to his earliest work. The basics of this involve the sad man Steve (the game's initial player character, played here by Hess' Nacho Libre collaborator Jack Black) who discovers the realm known as the Overworld and leaves the mundanity of his life in Idaho (where Napoleon Dynamite was also set) behind to craft to his heart's content. However, when a vaguely sketched evildoer and her army of pigs capture him, a new group of adventurers in the former gamer Garrett "The Garbage Man" Garrison (Jason Momoa), orphaned siblings Henry (Sebastian Hansen) and Natalie (Emma Myers), and the small town's kindly real estate agent/mobile zoo operator Dawn (Danielle Brooks) get sucked into the world with him after discovering a magical MacGuffin he sent back to Earth.
There's something initially broadly quirky about these opening scenes and a throughline where White Lotus' Jennifer Coolidge plays a vice principal looking for love that offer small slivers of absurdity. Unfortunately, everything else in the cubed world is a drag. Not only does it never once feel visually dynamic, with the overreliance on all-consuming visual effects making it mostly feel like we're watching the actors roam around a lifeless world of green screens, but none of the cast can give it any spark. Black, though great in films like School of Rock where he's been able to strike a balance between sincerity and silliness, is entirely one-note here as he largely just delivers explanations of the world in a slightly goofy voice or sings songs that feel less written than slapped together in the moment. Momoa, who was a gas in the otherwise turgid recent Fast X, is entirely obnoxious here as he keeps repeatedly screaming and shouting in the hopes this will wear us down to make his comprehensively unfunny schtick work.
The longer we are stuck with these characters, with Dawn and the two kids fading almost entirely into the background, the more it is A Minecraft Movie starts to fall completely apart. This is less a movie as much as it is a rote recitation of what it thinks an adventure romp like this should be like. There's a tension-free chase sequence, a deception without any stakes, and a big final battle where a laser shoots into the sky, though never once does it build anything truly fun. It's a perplexing, entirely perfunctory affair from start to finish that may prove amusing on a base level for younger audiences who enjoyed the game and will recognize some of its elements, but they too deserve better.
There have been similarly bad video game movies before, but few that keep telling us they could be doing so many exciting things only to not do them as consistently as A Minecraft Movie does. That it keeps going on and on about how critical imagination is only makes all the ways that it doesn't offer anything imaginative of its own that much more baffling. Even as the bar was low, all A Minecraft Movie succeeds at is digging down lower and lower beneath it at every turn. Whatever treasures it repeatedly assures us are there, are never found.
A Minecraft Movie
Rated PG
Directed by Jared Hess
Starring Jack Black, Jason Momoa
