A Minecraft Movie Review
Surprisingly, despite its absolutely terrible story, A Minecraft Movie is undeniably funny, and that gets it a strong passing grade.
Steve (Jack Black) discovers a mystical realm where he can build anything. But he’s captured by an evil Queen, who wants his orb. Steve sends the Orb back to Earth, where years later it is discovered by orphan Henry (Sebastian Eugene Hansen) - a young loner who loves building things and creating. Henry, alongside faded gamer Garett Garrison (Jason Momoa), sister Natalie (Emma Myers) and realtor Dawn (Danielle Brooks), finds his way into the Minecraft world, where with the help of Steve, they he’ll have to find a way out again while preventing the evil Queen from getting her hands on the mythical Orb.
A Minecraft Movie starts in the way many of us were expecting; signposting itself as an absolute dumpster fire. The exposition-heavy intro is interminable, and unbearable, and mercifully over in about 4 minutes. It is exactly what you thought it would be - cheesy, unwatchable, poorly performed and nonsensical.
The surprise is what happens next.
Director Jared Hess dives into a real world town as he introduces us to Henry, Natalie, Dawn and Garett Garrison (alongside true standout Jennifer Coolidge as Vice Principal Marlene), and it’s here the real shine of this movie starts to seep through. Hess, of Napoleon Dynamite fame, makes this town uber quirky, weird, and downright hilarious. It’s a shock, because we’ve been led to believe from the intro segment that this movie is going to be terrible, right? But then it winds up dragging belly laugh after belly laugh out of you - from the weird town, to Momoa’s unhinged performance and interactions with Henry, and even some of Danielle Brooks’ work as Dawn.
But it’s OK, because surely once we get back to the Minecraft land, out of the real world small town quirkiness that Hess is used to, back to Jack Black hamming it up, then it’ll be bad again right? Wrong!
Black and Momoa turn out to be an unbeatable comedic force. Their humour, together with the out of this world element thrust upon Henry, Dawn and Natalie, make the core group of humans a joy to hang out with and root for.
Make no mistake, this movie is silly to the max. And the story is completely garbage; the villain is utterly disinteresting, every plot point is as cliche as it gets, and the humour surrounding the actual minecraft characters never plays. But Warner Bros could not have done better than picking Hess for this film, because he infuses all of the elements around the Minecraft of it all with endless laughs, quirkiness, and downright silliness, that makes watching A Minecraft Movie a completely baffling, unexpected joy.
