The Minecraft Movie Is a Gloriously Stupid Trainwreck (But I Kinda Loved It)

Maybe it’s the 10mg edible and BIG glass of wine I had in the tank, but honestly? A Minecraft Movie wasn’t half bad.

It probably helped that I saw this in a 19+ theatre where most people were there at least semi-ironically. It felt like most of the laughs were aimed at the movie rather than with it — though, to be fair, a surprising number of jokes actually landed (considering my expectation was that none would).

Jack Black Yells Minecraft Terms: The Movie

Let’s not mince words here. The script is insultingly simplistic. Jack Black spends 90% of the movie just yelling Minecraft terms and exposition. Steve is basically the tutorial level for anyone who’s never touched the game before.

The film opens with an aggressively unnecessary monologue where Steve explains everything happening on screen like he’s reading the described video track for the visually impaired:

“I wanted to go in the mine, but kids weren’t allowed in the mine, so I grew up and had to get a boring desk job, but then I remembered I was an adult so I could go in the mine now, so I went in the mine.”

And… that’s the movie setup.

There are also moments that genuinely feel braindead. Like Steve asking, “Do you have the orb?” while the orb is literally in Henry’s hands. Or the back-writing on the note. Or the logistics of hiding the orb under Steve’s bed when, chronologically, his belongings should have been in a storage locker considering he’s clearly been in the Overworld long enough to go grey.

The Decline of Children’s Media

The bar for kids’ entertainment has fallen into the mineshaft and hit every block on the way down. Why can’t we get something like My Neighbor Totoro anymore — films that are simple and magical but still rich in substance and meaning?Instead, we get Jason Momoa playing what I can only describe as “an adult’s idea of what a kid thinks a cool adult looks like.” My first thought when his character appeared onscreen was: “This guy’s a groomer.” And correct me if I’m wrong, but I swear they even made a joke that somewhat leaned into that? Yikes. However, he fully commits to the weirdness, and his doofy “cool-guy” persona is certainly the live-action highlight after Jack Black — their comedic chemistry does a lot of heavy lifting throughout the movie.

Pixels > People.

Most of the human characters were bland or superfluous. Not much to chew on emotionally or thematically. The kids were fine — Henry’s (Sebastian Hansen) spectrum-coded pretty hard, Natalie (Emma Myers) main character trait is being worried about Henry (I guess?), and Dawn (Danielle Brooks) does her own version of “hey look at that minecraft thing!” and throws out a couple one-liners before being ushered off with Natalie so the boys can go on their pixelated adventure uninterrupted.

What I wasn’t expecting to praise was the CG — but here we are. The compositing of live action and CG elements? Honestly not bad. Maybe it helps that they’re only matching studio lighting to a virtual Day/Night cycle and not real-world sunlight, but the elements mesh together surprisingly cohesively. That being said, as predicted the best-looking scenes were far-and-above the ones with zero live-action performers — confirming my belief this would’ve been a much better movie if they had just fully committed to doing the whole thing digitally.

The Nether sequences actually look fantastic, and the mobs? They killed it. The facial tracking and performances (especially the big bad, Malgosha) are legit solid. The ultra high-res textures paired with the blocky models and human mocap does get a little uncanny at times, but the uncanny goes down easier when everyone’s already a blockhead. Also loved the (what I assume to be) Broad City “-or whatever” reference from the queer-coded Piglin General.

Tenacious Steve in the Diamond Pick of Destiny

I don’t know who greenlit the songs, but I kinda love that they exist. The whole theatre cackled when Steve broke into song the first time simply because of the absurdity of doing so. They’re awful — painfully so — and each one overstays its welcome by about 30 seconds.

Big diminishing returns on the music by the time you get to the third song though. That said, the ridiculous song-and-dance finale is exactly what I’ve been saying movies need to start doing again. It’s clearly a School of Rock homage, and I appreciated the hell out of it, despite not caring much for the song itself.

A Certified Quotemobile

From the very first trailer, I knew this was going to be a disaster. And make no mistake: It is. However, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable one. Thanks to the trailers being memed to death, most of us went in knowing every Jack Black quote by heart. Watching the film was just waiting for context and laughing at the occurrence:

“Flint and Steel!” cue audience whistle
“Chicken-Jockey!” half the theatre yells it with him
“Comin’ in HOT!” Rick Dalton point.gif

It’s not just that it’s dumb — it’s that it’s fun-dumb. And at times? Genuinely funny. Not many times, but enough. Shoutout to the jetpack scene, arts & gym teacher, and the city of “Chuglass, Idaho.”

Jennifer Coolidge: The Parents’ Saviour

I was obsessed with the Jennifer Coolidge subplot. It has zero narrative relevance. Not even pretending to tie into the story. Pure gag vehicle. And yet… easily the funniest part of the movie. Every scene she’s in? Comic gold. This one’s for The White Lotus fans. Missing her in Season 3? Well don’t worry, A Minecraft Movie’s got you covered. Absolute 10/10 casting.

Golems, Air Chases, and a Flying 69

Aight, imma say it: the Iron Golems are unironically cool as shit. Major Iron Giant vibes from that winged guy. And the Ghast/Elytra air-chase sequence? Somehow both awesome and hilarious — especially the flying 69 gag. Can’t believe they got away with that one.

Unfortunately, the finale drags with the obligatory boom-boom-pow Avengers: Endgame sequence. I checked out pretty hard during the big battle. Just sat there for at least a solid 5 minutes thinking about building a mountain railroad in the new Minecraft Realm I just opened up for me and my friends. By the time I came to, the battle was over and I had no idea what was going on.

Unwanted, Unnecessary, and Uninspired

This is clearly a studio cash grab — targeted at kids, yet written for people who’ve never played the game. It’s not what anyone wanted or expected, but despite everything going against it… it weirdly works? Kinda.

Jack Black carries this film on his back. He goes all in, salvaging the bottom-tier dialogue with sheer vocal madness and physical commitment. I was dumbfounded by the casting decision at first, but now I don’t think anyone else could have pulled this off without it just being bad bad.

But it’s hard not to mourn the version we could have had. The original C418 soundtrack already gave us the emotional blueprint. Minecraft has endless narrative potential — so why default to the most generic “portal to another world” structure imaginable?

It feels like a movie made by people who don't truly understand the nature of the Minecraft game, and don't really understand what audiences wanted from a Minecraft movie. And from the movie's suspected financial success based on the media firestorm this marketing campaign has lit up, I don't think they're going to learn anything from the experience either. I imagine the vibe of the next Warner Bros board meeting to have a vibe reminiscent of that final scene in Burn After Reading.

"What did we learn today? I don't know. I guess we learned not to do it again. I'm f****d if I know what we did."

We already had Minecraft: Story Mode. We’ve got decades of machinima and fan animations to pull from. Hell, even YouTube shorts have done more creative storytelling in 30 seconds than this script did in 101 minutes. I don't know about everyone else, but I'm so so sooooo tired of Isekai stories — anime already beat that horse to death a decade ago.

Not Good, But Not Not Worth Watching

It’s not Cats (2019). It’s not Megalopolis. It’s not Minions: Rise of Gru. It’s certainly no Barbenheimer, but it’s somewhere in the middle of all that cinematic chaos.

There’s a way to enjoy this movie — and it starts with accepting that it’s not going to be good. Just let it be dumb, let it be obnoxious, and let yourself be entertained. Let its painful mediocrity and cascade of baffling creative decisions wash over you like a wave of hot lava onto an unsuspecting chicken. Just make sure you're prepared to laugh at it a LOT more than with it.While the script is the weakest part of the film by far, the technical crew certainly deserves props for making the most of it. The CG is solid. The visuals aren’t trying to be Pixar, and I respect that. But hey, if the animation team weren’t shackled to Minecraft’s chunky aesthetic, they probably would’ve gone full Pixar anyway — just like that ridiculous-looking animated Jesus movie from the pre-show trailers.

At the end of the day, I do believe this is a movie worth being seen. I’m not sure it’s worth being seen sober, but I leave that at your discretion.

One thing's for sure: I will be quoting this thing until the end of time, without a doubt.

“THIS! Is a CrrrrrAFTING table.”