The experience of watching A Minecraft Movie with an audience full of deeply invested, unruly teenagers was far more entertaining than the movie itself. I don’t know that I have ever felt more out-of-step with the current generation than in this context, witnessing a full audience of young people enthralled with this cinematic translation of arguably the biggest specifically Gen-Z pop culture phenomenon, which I had virtually no knowledge of or even a reference point for (I just assumed Minecraft was a digital version of Lego). This must have been what it was like for our own elders when the Harry Potter movies came out -confused themselves but in awe of how passionate the kids are for it.
Remembering and empathizing with that passion is probably why it pains me a bit more than expected to say that A Minecraft Movie is pretty bad. From what I can gather (and the movie makes few real efforts to acquiesce to non-fans in the audience), there is a lot of room for inventiveness and even curious storytelling in this world that is quite expansive and intricately detailed, in the games at least. But despite creativity being the major half-hearted theme of the movie, it is nothing if not conventional and, like its boxy designs, structurally boring.
In another ‘ordinary humans enter a fantasy world’ narrative, introverted teen Henry (Sebastian Hansen), his guardian older sister Natalie (Emma Myers), real estate agent Dawn (Danielle Brooks), and washed-up 80s video game champ Garrett (Jason Momoa) through a blue cubic orb and an abandoned mine are pulled from their small Idaho town to the Overworld, a magical dimension entirely composed of cubes -where they meet its adventurer/sole human resident Steve (Jack Black) and join him in a mission to stop an army of evil pigs bent on sapping that world of creativity.
It is a very flat world, and I refer to Idaho in that statement as much as the Overworld: a bland generic town perfectly suited for a bland collection of archetypes thrown together through contrivance and very dimly written. The strange circumstance that has resulted in Natalie (who looks about fourteen) being a legal guardian to her little brother wreaks of a scripting team -this movie had five- simply not wanting to bother with the inclusion of parents for some reason or another; while the bullies Henry faces at school are in manner and dialogue ripped directly from the laziest tropes of old teen movies. The place just has a dry look about it as well, especially at Garrett’s nostalgia shop -perhaps intended to make the contrast in colour of the Overworld stand out more, but it only accentuates a look of emptiness that carries over into that world which, though bright is by no means visually appealing.
No explanation ever comes for why the Overworld is made of cubes -none of its newcomers question it or are even all that disoriented by their inter-dimensional travel at all -everything is just easily accepted on its face. The rules of building structures and creating weapons or artifacts is all exposited at some point or another by Steve, and there’s no trouble taking in that mechanism -Henry of course as audience surrogate is a natural at it. The movie clearly isn’t aiming at newcomers or converts -it’s for the fans, replete with plenty of gags and easter eggs for them to catch on to (I knew where they were by the jubilant reaction of the audience). And that is fine -the Dungeons & Dragons movie from a couple years back was also primarily geared towards D&D nerds; though that is a much bigger, cross-generational fan-base, and the film still took the effort to make itself accessible. A Minecraft Movie attempts this in some places, but not to much degree of competence -it would seemingly rather play in the world already built for it than explore it in an open way befitting the new medium. In this respect, it has much more in common with The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
And like that movie, it really exploits its Jack Black. His script is tailor-made to his own performance instincts and public persona -a lot of zealous hyperbole, overplayed sarcasm, and mid-life crisis-style anarchy. And of course after the baffling popularity of his one-note song in Super Mario Bros., he is given a couple similar ditties in this film. Much as Black is naturally a ball of energy though, his performance is very lacklustre -it’s stuff he could do in his sleep, and the t-shirt and unkempt beard make it look like he was just pulled straight out of those home-bound COVID videos of his (in fact it was probably the aesthetic the movie cast him for). On the whole, the cast is significantly disappointing (Rachel House, through no fault of her own, is becoming less and less a welcome presence in movies). An out-of-place Momoa is trying too hard, Myers is mostly wooden, and Brooks -the only Oscar nominee of the cast- might as well not be there for how little she matters. It’s also hard to avoid the stereotypical components to how her character is played and written, present for Myers as well but not so uncomfortably so. Hansen may be the most genuinely invested (probably the only cast-member with any actual knowledge of Minecraft), but whether by Jared Hess’s poor direction or his own issues, he does not deliver much of a solidly convincing performance -and fails to look like more than a demographically relevant stooge.
It fits the very calculated structure of the movie, transparently a piece of brand consolidation badly disguised as an inspired narrative. There is a great irony in how much it pushes a theme on the power of imagination and of creativity allowed the space and licence to flourish. It is a tepidly conveyed message, betraying the studio and screenwriters' lack of any investment in it, backed up in no degree by any imagination in the storytelling. It's not just in the lazy, cliché-ridden writing and lifeless snark tendencies of the humour though; just about every product of anyone's creativity is in fact a marketing prop, a reference to something the fans can recognize. Where The Lego Movie translated this same conviction through bombastic original designs and a strong enthusiasm towards the possibilities of invention, A Minecraft Movie presents only a shell of imagination, something useful only in regurgitating the same shiny things you've been fed. And it's a much closer analogue to the philosophy of its corporate handlers as a result. Creating something new is not as important as consuming something familiar.
To the delight of those suits, A Minecraft Movie does seem to be on track to being another Super Mario Bros. Movie if such reactions as at my screening are any indicator. They have cracked the formula without having to instill any effort to make the product transcend beyond its target demographic and their mere excitement at having their favourite references and memes read back to them. It's really a boring movie, indicative of the most lacklustre, uninspired instincts of the current Hollywood system. And what I do get a sense of, from the breadth of the Minecraft property and its widespread impact on creative young people, is that this wasn't at all necessary.
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