A Minecraft Movie

Note: This review contains spoilers for A Minecraft Movie.

What happens when you make a movie based on a video game with no story? Markus “Notch” Persson tried to find out in 2014 when his company, Mojang, struck with a deal with Warner Bros. to develop Minecraft, Persson’s creation and currently the best-selling video game of all time. As with many Hollywood projects, however, the project went through development hell for nearly a decade, surviving several personnel changes both at Warner Bros. and at Mojang, including Microsoft purchasing the company and Persson subsequently stepping down. Finally, in 2022, production finally went into full swing, with filming conducted in 2024 and the final release in 2025. Although the film received mixed reception from critics, with a 48% on Rotten Tomatoes, it still earned just shy of $1 billion at the box office against a budget of $150 million. A rather impressive feat.

Although I had some experience with Minecraft, I didn’t really watch it out of any genuine excitement. The first trailer left a bad impression between its use of The Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour” and editing that didn’t contain a single trace of sincerity. The following trailers did a better job with showing the actual plot and comedic tone, but did little to wash out the sour taste left by the initial reveal. Of course, when the movie succeeded despite expectations, it gained awareness not for any indication of quality, but from the memes that spawned from it, including the infamous “Chicken Jockey” trend that caused headaches for theaters and the employees who had to clean up huge messes, not helped by how director Jared Hess didn’t really discourage the behavior (he did benefit from the increased ticket sales, after all). The non-zero possibility of witnessing such chaos firsthand discouraged me from seeing in the theater, even if I really wanted to, so I didn’t consider it until I could stream it on HBO Max, free from spills, live chickens or rowdy theatergoers, if only to see what all the fuss was about. About 100 minutes later, I walked away fully convinced that such an average film’s success came entirely from memes, for better or worse.

Steve (Jack Black) enters a mine to fulfill a childhood dream and discovers an orb that lets him enter the Overworld, another world where he can create anything he wishes out of its cubes. After discovering a portal to a hellish world called the Nether, he’s captured by Malgosha, a gold-obsessed Piglin who discourages creativity, but manages to get his wolf Dennis to escape to the real world and hide the orb in his home in Chuglass, Idaho so that Malgosha can’t use it to control the Overworld. Sometime later, four misfits, Garrett "The Garbage Man" Garrison (Jason Momoa), a struggling game store owner and gaming champion whose glory days are behind him; Henry (Sebastian Hansen) and Natalie (Emma Myers), siblings who move to Chuglass following their mother’s death; and Dawn (Danielle Brooks), a realtor who runs a mobile petting zoo, come into possession of the orb and travel to the Overworld themselves, where Malgosha sets her plan back in motion, but with Steve helping her under duress.

A ragtag group of adventurers; L-R: Natalie (Emma Myers),
Garret Garrison (Jason Momoa), Henry (Sebastian Hansen), Dawn (Danielle Brooks).

Although A Minecraft Movie has multiple issues, they mostly tie back to how a movie with such an overt theme of creativity (Steve’s creativity flourished in the Overworld, Henry’s school tried to stamp out his creativity, Malgosha’s creativity was stamped out so she took it out on everyone else) that takes place in a world of literally infinite possibilities chose the most generic and “safe” family/isekai plotline imaginable. Not only can you predict how the film will go based on familiarity alone, you can also feel a tangible lack of effort in fleshing out the underdeveloped characters and smoothing over the plot holes (ex. “How did Steve, Henry and Garrett escape from a group of Vindicators unscathed?”). Not to mention an unironic usage of “unalive”, an overly sanitized way of saying “kill” in this context that doesn’t help the “corporate cash grab” feeling from watching the story unfold. There’s also a subplot with Marlene (Jennifer Coolidge) and an Overworld villager named Nitwit (Matt Berry) that contributes absolutely nothing to the story apart from padding out the runtime to (presumably) meet some weird mandate. Honestly, I feel like the opening narration condensing Steve’s adventure in the Overworld would have made for a far more interesting movie on its own, as there’s certainly enough fuel in there for it.

When it’s not predictable, it’s also annoying at times. Although I kind of liked one character, I couldn’t help groaning when they called him General Chungus (Jared Hess), a nod to a popular internet meme that definitely won’t age poorly (he’s also the one who says “unalive”). I also rolled my eyes at the unspoken “69” reference, especially since it involved both Jack Black and Jason Momoa. I also admittedly found myself confused by the cameo from Alex (played by Alice May Connolly, voiced by Kate McKinnon), not because she was there (it actually made sense to have her there), but because the film’s editing gave me the impression that Henry and Natalie had moved into Steve’s house and not Alex.

Paradoxically, however, you can still sense some amount of passion for the material behind the camera. The world of Minecraft is translated pretty faithfully to the screen, down to designing everything with cubes, even if some of the mobs don’t look as good in the more realistic style. Considering the amount of CG present in the film though, I still wondered why the studio didn’t just fully animate it, as opposed to a live-action/3D hybrid, and the lighting in the Overworld doesn’t help the sentiment that a lot of movies coming out these days don’t really look like movies (it has a lot to do with the intentionality in the lighting, or lack thereof).

"No animals were harmed in the making of this film."

Having said all of that, however, I would be disingenuous if I didn’t admit that I felt entertained in places. As someone who has played Minecraft before, I still enjoyed seeing how the film visualized different gameplay elements and liked that they made nods to various exploits and fan creations. Even if the end result can also feel like a tutorial for playing the game, they represented the mechanics very accurately, likely from Mojang’s involvement in the production, although I’m not enough of an expert on the game to know the accuracy of the arrangement of items on the crafting table at a glance. Despite the painfully average script, the actors were clearly committed to their roles, though Jack Black almost hard carries the film, as his tendency to say what’s happening to him with great intensity gave the impression that he had fun anyway (we even threw a closed bag of popcorn at the “Chicken Jockey” scene just to “complete” the experience). I even laughed at certain moments and lines outside of Jack Black, so I can’t say the film was completely devoid of genuine humor as I had feared.

Every theater employee's worst nightmare. Pictured: Steve (Jack Black).

Like the live-action adaptation of Five Nights at Freddy’s, fans can also spot nods to their favorite content creators; of the ones that made a physical cameo, I only recognized DanTDM (I don’t typically consume Minecraft content). There was also a nice tribute to Technoblade, a popular and influential professional Minecraft player who died of cancer, but the execution would make no sense to anyone who doesn’t already know who he is (I happened to know of him beforehand).

Of course, the big question for a lot of video game movies is its accessibility for those who have never touched the source material. In this case, based on who I watched it with, I can say that the movie does a fairly good job in that department, though it would be difficult for the uninitiated to know how much came from the game and how much was original to the film.

Even with its enjoyable spots, however, I can’t find myself easily recommending A Minecraft Movie to anyone but Minecraft or Jack Black fans. It’s as by-the-numbers as you can get for a modern “family” film and we fortunately live in a world where we have higher-quality video game adaptations like Gran Turismo, The Super Mario Bros. Movie or Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Even so, whether ironic or not, it’s clear that this one will have some cultural staying power.