Introduction

In the thick of the ad campaign craze of A Minecraft Movie, with the theatrical release of the movie edging ever closer, our friend group jumped on the bandwagon and roughed out a plan to see the movie a couple days after the release. Potential viewers were allured by the promise of their beloved video game on the silver screen and Jack Black’s effortlessly witty lines (“I… am Steve.”). By the fateful day of April 4, everyone and their mother had seen the same three clips regurgitated on their Instagram Reels feed some dozen times. While unorthodox, A Minecraft Movie’s approach to advertising made a splash. 

So we followed the crowd, meeting at Regal Marysville on April 6, excited to see what the movie really was. It was reserve seating, and due to a nervous friend’s mistake, we’d all accidentally stuck ourselves with front row seats. Now, a movie theater is the one place you don’t want that. It was fine, though, because the movie itself wasn’t worth the effort of craning our heads up to see the whole screen.

See, A Minecraft Movie worked its way into the collective Gen Z consciousness, up there with, I don’t know, 6’2″ nonchalant dreadheads. It’s a movie that a lot of people have seen―or are wanting to watch. Conversely, a lot of people despise it―have either vowed never to watch it or already have and hated it. So what makes it so diverse in its ratings? Well, here are the main positive and negative takes on the Minecraft Movie, and hopefully, one of us will be able to sway your opinion with our nonchalant 6’2″ charm.

Pim’s Segment:

What makes this movie so great―or just to some?

The plot, setting, and characters―so all the important parts of the story―are absolutely horrible. But that’s what makes it great. All the characters do is exist. That’s it. Nothing else! The story is just there, the world serves no purpose. Nothing in the movie mattered at all, nor did it try to. To be honest, if I were a small child watching that movie, would I enjoy it? Yes! Would I remember anything from it or care about it? Nope. As a teenager watching it, I did not watch it alone. I watched it in a movie theater with a few friends, and that was what made it life changing.

The movie theaters watching the movie weren’t just filled with kids―adults, teenagers, everybody was there! Whenever something slightly funny or anything to do with the memes happened, everyone would clap and yell and do whatever, which significantly made the movie way more fun and interesting to watch. So for the really bad moments, it just made the whole movie theater laugh instead.

Though the movie is obviously made for kids, it doesn’t make you feel like a child in any way. Everyone in the movie theaters just wanted to watch it for fun, and they weren’t expecting anything. They didn’t care if it was bad, or if it was good. They just wanted to laugh. 

We chuckled and yelled with the rest of the theater. Although it felt regular at first, it made me realize that I enjoyed the movie because I didn’t care about how it was gonna end.  But that’s what made it fun―you don’t watch A Minecraft Movie for the plot, you watch for the experience. So, if you plan to watch it, expect nothing―it makes it way funnier and more enjoyable.

But why do people dislike it then? Well, let’s dive in and find out!

Allison’s Segment:

When I took my unfortunately-placed seat in that theater, I mentally buckled up for a lighthearted, blunt comedy movie. I mean, they had Jack Black, and you’ve statistically probably seen enough Jack Black movies in your life to know how Jack Black movies are. That’s what was promised to people in the trailers thus far— or, rather, the thing that got droves of people, us included, packed into that theater for an otherwise crappy-looking movie. And on that front, this movie delivered. Jokes galore, most of them consisting of Jack Black pointing out what was obviously already happening; the rest not being much better. And yes, it was corny, but that’s why we came. If the film had submitted itself fully to being a shallow all-ages comedy, it would have been fine. Forgettable, yes, but fine.

The problem is, even with its less than one-dimensional characters and more than obnoxious humor, A Minecraft Movie attempts to mean something.

We’re rushed through the beginning of the movie to dryly establish our supporting characters: a group of quirky misfits disillusioned with the world who are transported into “the Overworld”, or the Minecraft world. They meet Steve, who leads them through the infinite possibilities of Minecraft. The quintessential antagonists of the film are the piglins (little humanoid pigs), who have an evil plan to invade and restrict the creativity of both the Overworld and Earth. Our ragtag team of misfits is the only thing standing in their way, thus launching the plot into motion. 

Not that it matters, because the only ounce of character development over the course of it is funneled into the enemies-to-brothers Bromance between Jack Black and Jason Mamoa. I’d love to say more about it, but the plot really is that shallow and generic. A Minecraft Movie has nothing else going for it to justify its banality. Each beat of the world is equally forgettable: characters, jokes, visuals, themes. In fact, rather than rooting for the protagonists, I found myself hating the ‘likeable’ ones (flip you, Henry, you little twerp).

Uncanny is not a strong enough word to address this movie’s art direction. It was downright disturbing. My biggest grievance with our seats turned out not to be the uncomfortable angling of my neck, but the constant urge to distance myself as much as possible from the fleshy nightmares on screen. Go, scroll back up to the top of this article, bore your gaze onto that chicken. It’s like you can feel its soul clawing to escape its flesh prison. The thousand yard stare doesn’t help. Adapting a video game composed entirely of smooth cubes into hyperrealism is not only a waste of money, but an offense to Minecraft itself, proof that visual simplicity can provide sufficient expression and aesthetic appeal.

A Minecraft Movie‘s fatal flaw is that it never commits. It had its poison lined up: nostalgia bait, lackluster plot, tryhard humor, over-sentimentality, bad art direction. I wouldn’t say it picked a poison, as much as it scarfed them all down. By trying to be everything, it excels at nothing. A Minecraft Movie is damned to mediocrity.