A Minecraft Movie (2025) - Film Review

The film industry has had a puzzling history with picking the right video games to adapt into films, and here's another one. Adding to the list of odd choices for video games being made into films in the veins of Apple TV's "Tetris" is "A Minecraft Movie", led by Jack Black and Jason Momoa. It should be noted that my experience with this popular IP is bare minimum. I only know about how popular this sandbox game is. I also tried to play it one time, and it never grabbed me enough to return back to it. That's all there is to my relationship with the game itself.

As for how this game translates into film, let's just say that my mind has not changed on the IP after watching this either. In fact, I'm willing to bet good money that even the diehard "Minecraft" community is going to be just as puzzled by this as I am. This film reminds me alot of last year's "Harold and the Purple Crayon" in more ways than one. Both films have a similar plot concept at its center. Jack Black plays Steve, an aspiring miner who finally gets to fulfill his calling. He discovers a relic that leads him to a new world that he strives to protect.

As Steve is trapped in captivity by our main antagonist, a pig named Malgosha, his loyal companion dog Dennis hides the relic in our reality to keep it out of reach. We flash forward by a few years to a group of four folks (including Mamoa) who find the relic and are transported to the titular world. The four find Steve and Dennis and embark on a quest to get them back to their reality while fending off Malgosha's minions. My honest reaction to "A Minecraft Movie" can best be summarized by a face I made throughout the majority of watching it: pure confusion.

I was constantly distracted by the baffling and poor decisions within this narrative that I was hard pressed to notice what few aspects this film gets right. The character development in this film is shockingly bad. This is one of those films like "Mufasa: The Lion King" where our primary characters take only a few seconds to trust each other when they really shouldn't. The subplot with the two orphaned teen characters (Emma Myers, Sebastian Hansen) is recycled straight out of "Lilo & Stitch", with the eldest taking care of the other.

In spite of having the appearance of Paul Rudd's potential future offspring, Hansen turns in an extremely bland performance. Danielle Brooks plays a very typical African American stereotype as a real estate agent aspiring to be a mobile petting zoo owner. Her character is easily the most shrill and cloying of the bunch. Jack Black is largely repeating his same shtick. Plenty of energy with his work mind you, but nothing about his character really stands out that much. Like Black, Mamoa's largely just sticking to his normal routine that you've seen before.

The dialogue itself is extremely stale and dated. If I made a dollar for every time I've heard "that's what I'm talking about" and other stock lines in movies like this, I'd have enough money to clear this country's debt. You can tell there was 5 to 6 writers on this, for it's as if they didn't really know what they were doing with this IP. So they went with the most generic material imaginable, ironically in service of a story emphasizing the importance of being creative. See what I mean by the similarity between this and "Harold and the Purple Crayon"?

To be fair, this is easily a better movie than "Harold and the Purple Crayon", but not by much. Dennis, with his intentionally blocky design, is a cool and loyal companion to our leads. Although the character by Jennifer Coolidge arguably wasn't needed, she does at least have an interesting arc with one of this world's inhabitants. There is at least an understanding of how this specific world works, and its quick day and night cycles. You take any resources in this world and create a tool or weapon of your own making. It's true to the license at least.

The simple fact of the matter is "Minecraft" is an open-world sandbox game with no main storyline, so to speak. It's meant to be enjoyed recreationally and shared online with your buddies. It's similar to "Animal Crosssing" or " The Sims" in that sense. Due to the type of game it is, this already didn't translate well into film due to the property not lending itself to what we expect from films. Films/shows on "Uncharted" and "The Last of Us" are one thing. Adaptations for the likes of "Minecraft" are something else. I don't think we're ready for this.

Final Verdict: 4.5/10