Looking back at the whole experience of watching A Minecraft Movie I gotta say this thing is exactly what you would expect from Warner Brothers taking one of the biggest video game properties in the world and turning it into a corporate money making machine, but somehow they managed to make it watchable enough that I did not shut it down after 15 min in, my expectations were very low thats why it took me so long so last night when I had almost nothing else to watch decided to give it a try, yup it failed. Jack Black shows up as Steve and basically does his usual Jack Black routine cranked up to eleven, screaming and making weird noises while everyone else around him tries to keep up with his energy levels, the guy is literally just playing himself with a blue shirt and calling it a character. Jason Mamoa plays this washed up video game store owner who dresses like he is still stuck in the early 2000s and honestly his performance might be the most entertaining thing in the entire movie, watching him act like a complete manchild while still trying to be cool is both cringy and hilarious at the same time. The rest of the cast including Emma Myers and Sebastian Hansen are fine but they feel more like place holders than actual characters, Danielle Brooks gets the worst deal of all since she basically has nothing to do except drive people around and react to things happening around her.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3566834
- Platform: MAX
Rottentomatoes Rating
[Source](https://screenrant.com)
The visual effects is where this movie really shows its budget and also where it completely falls apart, we go all the way up to then fall badly at times, the Minecraft world itself looks pretty amazing with all those blocky textures and bright colors that pop off the screen, you can tell they probably spent serious money making sure every pig and chicken looked exactly like they do in the game, but then you got real people in the mix standing around in this digital wonderland and it looks absolutely terrible, at least in my opinion, might be my age but not my type of movie, its like someone took actors from a completely different movie and just pasted them into a video game scene, the green screen work is so obvious that it makes those old Spy Kids movies look like cutting edge technology. Every time someone interacts with a Minecraft object or creature it feels fake and distracting and for me its a big problem when the whole point is supposed to be about these people getting transported into this magical world, instead you just keep thinking about how uncomfortable the actors must have been standing in front of green screens pretending to care about digital blocks.
The story is probably the most predictable thing I have seen all year, they basically took the plot from Jumanji, that is a movie many compare it to as Jack Black was part of it in the 2017 version, feels like they basically stripped out anything interesting or surprising out of that movie, a group of people get sucked into a video game world and have to work together to get back home while learning somewhat valuable lessons about friendship and teamwork. There is an evil pig queen who wants to take over everything for reasons that are never really explained beyond her being the designated bad guy, Jack Black has to save his wolf friend Dennis because that is what the script says he needs to do and everyone runs around collecting mcguffins while making jokes about how weird everything is, I know Im just sounding too pessimistic about this one but the internet already agree with my take, Im just the last guy complaining about a bad movie probably. The whole thing feels like it was written by a group of executives who have never played Minecraft but watched a bunch of Youtube videos about it, every reference feels forced and every joke lands as a brick through a window, its like the creators were just checking off boxes on their list of things that need to happen to make this feel like a proper Minecraft adaptation.
What saves this movie from being a complete disaster is that everyone involved seems to understand how ridiculous the whole thing is and just goes with it, Jack Black in particular embraces the absurdity and starts singing random songs and making weird faces, Jason Momoa commits fully to being this loser character who thinks he is way cooler than he actually is. The movie never takes itself seriously enough to become boring, there is always something happening on screen whether its people falling from the sky or getting chased by zombies or watching Jack Black try to explain the rules of Minecraft to confused adults, the pacing moves fast enough that you do not have time to think too hard about how stupid everything is, literally your brain stays at the door and you just go into automatic mode to watch the movie, no need to understand it, its almost like you are watching Tiktok feed but very fast going through shorts. The action scenes are well choreographed even if they do not make much sense, watching people fight skeletons and creepers while trying to build shelter is entertaining, the sound effects of the movie during these sequences actually makes everything feel dangerous and chaotic even when you know nobody is really in danger.
The whole experience of watching this movie really depends on who you are watching this with and what kind of audience shows up, for me its just ridiculous how teenagers lost their minds every time Jack Black said something that sounded like a meme, cheering and clapping like they were at a sporting event instead of a movie from some videos that went viral. I could only imagine how I would walked out because the noise might be too much or too distracting but honestly if you were part of that energy in the room I could understand how fun than it probably be so yeah its a very target age movie, watching kids get excited about seeing their favorite video game characters come to life reminded me why these movies get made in the first place, just like the MCU or DCU, thats my age kind of movie when comics Superhero are now on movies, well there is an entire generation that prefer memes on movies I guess. This is not trying to be high art or win any awards, it is specifically designed to sell toys and get parents to take their children to see something that will keep them entertained for the length of the movie, on that level it absolutely succeeds even if it fails at being a good movie in any traditional sense. I got to respect how at least the movie is honest about what it is, a corporate product designed to make money while providing just enough entertainment value to justify the ticket price and as I have describe before this is just exactly what I was expecting but in my honest opinion not a movie that I would recommend to any adult so why I only gave it a 6.5/10 and Im been generous to be honest.
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