April 25th, 2025

I was 19 years old when I first fired up the pixelated crafting world that was Notch’s Minecraft. It was still in beta testing, and had been for over a year, but it was clear that the developer had created something special, as the calm tones of C418’s soundtrack lulled me into a creative state. I built a small house and began exploring the world, finding a cliffside to begin my scavenging quest for survival, taking breaks from my tunneling at night to shelter in the home that I had crafted. It was (and is) an experience that many other players had gone through, and yet feels wholly original anytime I fire the game up.

It’s now almost 16 years later and Minecraft has moved onto being the best selling video game of all time, fostering merch deals and brand partnerships. It has since been acquired by Microsoft, and for the past ten years the brand has been working towards the release of a major motion picture, churning through directors Rob McElhenney and Shawn Levy before landing on Napolean Dynamite’s Jared Hess. After years of development struggles A Minecraft Movie is out and absolutely body slamming the box office, to the delight of hoards of chaotic teens as they scream in joy at the mention of chicken jockeys and slime cubes.

And while it’s hard to be mad at any kind of box office success in 2025, there are issues with A Minecraft Movie, first and foremost the quiet creative energy that first lured curious gamers down the mineshaft in 2009 is nowhere to be found. For a bulk of the movie the film instead tilts towards a manic energy that’s more akin to swiping through a teens TikTok account than the slow and charming tones of the C418 soundtrack. At no point does Jack Black turn down his Jack Blackness to anything lower than an 11/10, and it’s this constant roiling tenor that makes the movie feel more like a theme ride than the contemplative digging the game felt like in the late aughts. Jack Black has an effusive energy that’s hard to deny, but when that energy is this high throughout the entire 101 minute runtime it becomes exhausting and dull.

To their credit the rest of the cast never manage to maintain the hour and half guitar sting of a performance that Black does. Jason Momoa for example is genuinely funny as a down on his luck former video game champ, and the two young actors of the film Emma Myers and Sebastian Eugene Hansen occassionally feel like characters as opposed to caricatures. The best section of the film is the longest stretch without Black, and also takes place outside of the world of Minecraft. Here Director Hess is able to tap into the oddball comedy that made Napolean Dynamite and Nacho Libre feel so special. Jennifer Coolidge as a principal looking for love is among the best bits in the movie, as well as a brief gag with Hiram Garcia as a depressed teacher that genuinely made me laugh. It should be noted that Academy Award Nominee Danielle Brooks is completely wasted in the movie, never having much of a plot or given any kind of comedic bit to pull off. A skill she certainly has, as witnessed is the series Orange is the New Black.

But of course, this can’t remain the somewhat calm and quiet coming of age movie that the first act was setting up. We do eventually have to enter the world of Minecraft, with all its CGI wonder and boring callbacks to the game that hoards of teens are waiting to hear. I did admittedly see this at 1PM on a Wednesday afternoon, so there wasn’t a mass of roiling children shrieking in delight as Jack Black uttered the phrase “Chicken Jockey” and that was by design on my part. But even still, there are flashes of genuine comedy is parts of this movie that are hard to overlook. And well it does jump through some of the traditional fan service hoops that the existing IP machines demand it winds up feeling a hell of a lot more original in terms of film than many of it’s ilk. And while I don’t wish to be amongst the teens as they throw their popcorn around when a baby zombie rides a chicken, I’m glad that people are having fun at the movies.

2.5/5