A Minecraft Movie (Christian Movie Review)
A Minecraft Movie is a better-than-expected family adventure that shares a positive message about the power of creativity.
About the Film
With more than 300 million sales, Minecraft is the best-selling video game of all time. It has inspired astonishing creativity in players as they let their imaginations run wild in its open sandbox world of pixelated blocks. The game’s lofty reputation made the lackluster (to put it mildly) marketing material for A Minecraft Movie particularly deflating. Even my 10-year-old sons, who are seemingly applying Malcolm Gladwell’s “10,000-hour rule” to the game, had to be dragged to the theater. Is the film really as bad as the negative buzz suggests? Surprisingly, no. It might be a stretch to deem it a “good” movie, but it is fun and entertaining. Despite never fully realizing the potential of its source material, A Minecraft Movie is a better-than-expected family adventure that shares a positive message about the power of creativity.
Gone are the days when video game film adaptations were predictably awful. The Super Mario Bro. Movie, the Sonic franchise, and The Last of Us series have done much to level up the genre. Minecraft seems ripe for adaptation, and it’s shocking that Hollywood hadn’t already mined it for box-office gold. All the foundational elements of the popular game translate to the big screen in delightful ways. What’s more questionable is the element in the film that is not original to the game—the humans.
A Minecraft Movie takes the Jumanji approach of having real-world humans sucked into the secondary world of the game. I’m of the philosophy that the ideal human-to-animation ratio in these films skews as far from the humans as possible. After all, imagine waiting for more than a decade for a Minecraft movie and then getting this nightmare fuel instead. The trailers did little to quell concerns. Thankfully, both the human characters and the humor work much better within the context of the full-length film.
The first act, which is set mostly in the real world, is the weakest. Once the characters are transported to The Overworld, the story finds its groove. Jason Momoa is more fun than expected, even if his performance remains fairly one-note. Whether or not viewers enjoy the film will largely depend on how much they vibe with Jack Black’s comedic sensibilities, as A Minecraft Movie is quintessentially a Jack Black performance (for better or worse). It features Black’s trademark one-liners, body humor, and—in an effort to capture the viral success of “Peaches” from The Super Mario Bros. Movie—not one…not two…but three songs. Yet far from derailing the film, as some may have feared, Black becomes the secret sauce that makes it work. He exudes a sense of joy and enthusiasm that is contagious.
Surprisingly, what does hold the film back is the near-total lack of a component that should have been its greatest strength—building. Despite the film’s tagline that “anything you can imagine is possible—as long as what you imagine can be built out of blocks,” there is very little building to be found. Early in the film, a character builds a castle out of blocks. That scene marks the only true building moment in the movie. The characters occupy and interact with the existing world of blocks, but they don’t create anything with them. As a dad who has watched my kids dedicate an exorbitant amount of screen time to playing the game (don’t judge, parenting is hard), I’m not sure the movie clearly represents what Minecraft is actually about or why it is so beloved.
Director Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre) is known for oddball comedy. As expected, A Minecraft Movie never takes itself too seriously, though it mostly produces amused grins rather than vigorous belly laughs. Momoa’s character is entertaining in small doses but becomes tired with repeated exposure. Likewise, a recurring subplot featuring a romance between Jennifer Coolidge and a block-headed Villager from The Overworld isn’t nearly as funny as the film wants it to be. Some of the humor—such as the Coolidge scenes—may make parents uneasy. It often edges right up to the line, but it never really crosses it. Thus, the film remains a fun and mostly wholesome family adventure.
A Minecraft Movie isn’t without flaws. Yet an important part of the creative process is taking bold swings and learning from mistakes. Yes, there is too much focus on humans and not enough on block-building creativity. But it’s a fun film containing positive messages. I’m not sure I’d watch it again, but I’ll be happy to go see A Minecraft Movie 2 when it inevitably hits theaters in a few years.
For Consideration
On the Surface—(Profanity, Sexual content, violence, etc.).
Language: There are several profanities, including “h—” and “kick a—”, as well as 3-4 uses of “OMG.” There are also filler words, such as “fricking, “heck,” “son of a biscuit,” etc.
Violence: When the Minecraft Piglin warriors are killed, they turn into slabs of meat.
Sexuality: Nothing explicit, although several gags seem to rely on quasi-sexual humor between the characters played by Jack Black and Jason Momoa. In one scene, the two must press their bodies together, with their heads between each other’s knees, in order to squeeze through a narrow hole. For the most part, their relationship is depicted as a fun “bromance” rather than a questionable romance. Some flirtatious talk between a man and woman contains what are clearly intended to be sexual innuendos. There is a romance between a human and an inhuman Minecraft villager.
Engage The Film
The Power of Creativity
It should come as no surprise that the central theme for a Minecraft adaptation is the importance of nurturing the creativity within each individual and using that creativity to contribute to the world in a positive way. In a sense, The Overworld represents the game itself. It is a place in which human characters escape the burdens of “real life” and rediscover the almost child-like joy of imagination.
The four protagonists all need to reignite their creative spark. In different ways, they each feel trapped or beaten down by the burdens of life. The Overworld becomes a place where dormant creativity grows and flourishes. The central message of A Minecraft Movie is not escapism but the importance of fostering creativity in the real world.
Much about Minecraft (both the game and the movie) echoes the Bible. Humans were created in the image of a creative God (Genesis 1:27). As in Minecraft, we can’t create the world, but we can rearrange the existing material in a near-infinite number of ways. To borrow J. R. R. Tolkien’s terminology, we are “sub-creators.” Only God can create something wholly original. But as creatures made in his image, we can fill the existing world with our own creations of wonder and beauty.
