A Minecraft Movie (2025)
It's definitely a bad omen when a movie opens with a five-to-10-minute narration over explaining the plot instead of letting the audience discover plot points as the movie plays out. A Minecraft Movie, based on the 2011 sandbox video game developed and published by Swedish video game developer Mojang Studios, is a valid example of why the cinema going experience is going to hell.
Steve (Jack Black) discovers the Orb of Dominance and the Earth Crystal in a mine. When they are combined, a portal opens up and zaps Steve into the Overworld, a cubic dimension that thrives on imagination. Soon, Steve is taken prisoner by Malgosha, the piglin ruler of the hellscape called the Nether. She wants the Orb to control the Overworld, so it's a good thing that Steve had his dog Dennis hide the Orb and Crystal back in the real world.
Cut to years later, and four misfits—'80s video game champ Garrett "The Garbage Man" Garrison (Jason Momoa), siblings Henry and Natalie (Sebastian Hansen and Emma Myers), and their real estate agent Dawn (Danielle Brooks)—end up getting sucked into the Overworld. With Steve's help, they must build weapons to fight Malgosha and her minions while trying to figure out how to get home.
A Minecraft Movie is directed by Jared Hess, whose only really notable movie is Napoleon Dynamite, and this film is a stitched together mess of one-note characters and an unending barrage of digital effects. Momoa's character, in particular, is obnoxious and criminally unfunny, and the drama of Henry and Natalie dealing with the death of their mother feels insincere.
There is a pointless subplot of a cube-headed man from the Overworld entering the real world and going out on a date with a school principal played by Jennifer Coolidge. The always reliable Coolidge has a few funny lines, but the cube person just looks down right creepy.
Kids may like this, but it's probably safe to bet that if they revisit A Minecraft Movie in a few years, they will be shocked at how bad it actually is.
