Cert – PG, Run-time – 1 hour 41 minutes, Director – Jared Hess
A group of strangers (Jason Momoa, Emma Myers, Sebastian Hansen, Danielle Brooks) are transported to a world made of blocks, under threat from a sorceress (Rachel House). To defeat her and get back home they must learn to use their imaginations and the elements of this new world.
A variation of a film based on Minecraft, one of the most successful games of all time, has been in the works for over a decade. Multiple directors and leads have come and gone through both live-action and animated forms, Steve Carell’s name was attached for a number of years, but the base of the game has largely remained the same. It’s summed up in the eventual Minecraft movie’s prologue: an endless sandbox where you can make almost anything using the blocks and elements which construct the world. A world of infinite possibilities, as long as you use your imagination.
While that might be the spirit of the game and its open world it hasn’t translated to the screen or narrative. When not focusing on Jack Black announcing items and figures as if the film expects an recognising round-of-applause the story constantly calls back to better takes on unleashing your creativity – The Lego Movie consistently comes to mind for much of the slow 101-minute run-time.
The narrative itself is light, as a group of near-strangers, each feeling as if they’re stuck at their various points in life, are thrown into the Minecraft world after following a magical orb. However, in order to get back they must restore the cube the orb connects to and defeat piglin sorceress Malgosha (Rachel House); intent on travelling from her dark dimension to the ‘Overworld’ and spreading a destruction which removes creativity. Acting as a guide for Jason Momoa’s former gaming prodigy Garrett ‘The Garbage Man’ Garrison and Sebastian Hansen’s young designer Henry – while older sister Natalie (Emma Myers) and, almost nameless, family friend Dawn (Danielle Brooks – the only person who seems to be aware that the script smacks of having five credited writers) are pushed aside with their own side-strand which involves simply walking around and finding the others – is Black’s Steve, having left Earth in exchange for the freedom of Minecraft many years ago.
For those unfamiliar with the game there’s little to access here. For those familiar with it, get ready for a whistle-stop tour of item namedrops before moving on to the next batch. There’s less a rove through locations and more just a working down the list of key game elements that haven’t been seen or mentioned yet. Thankfully, any fears of an uncanny-valley aspect to the largely-CG visuals are put to rest quite early on. There may be some quite obvious green screen/ lighting clashes here and there, but for the most part the live-action characters blend into the world fairly well, and the likes of animals and villagers are certainly nowhere near as horrifying as the dwarfs in Disney’s recent Snow White remake. One of the best elements of the film involves a Villager travelling to the real world and ending up on a date with a character played by Jennifer Coolidge. Each moment is brief, but they create some light humour with a couple of silly gags. Plus, they act as the best way of telling just how much of the film is left in terms of how far through the date we are.
The humour doesn’t quite spread back into the Minecraft world as the majority of the film lacks laughs and is largely hampered by the biggest issue of the fact that it’s simply quite boring. Again, we’ve seen the overall arc of the narrative done multiple times before, and even more creatively. It feels like someone else showing you their lacklustre builds as you sit behind them, looking over their shoulder, without having been able to see any of the build-up or exploring process which could have maybe at least made them somewhat worthwhile. The film certainly isn’t the wreck that some might have predicted, in fact it’s not really a wreck at all and contains some brief glimmers of amusement, mostly when not bogged down by the Minecraft aspects. Instead, it’s just a rather bland traipse which frequently preaches about imagination but doesn’t display a great deal of it itself.
For a film all about unleashing imagination and creativity, A Minecraft Movie feels heavily familiar to a number of other family films in its vein. There are some light moments of amusement scattered throughout, but they don’t stop the boring feeling of seeing someone else wander through their own uninspired builds.
Just A Little Bit Random 