A Minecraft Movie Is Bad
I am probably the only twenty-something in the United States who has never played the computer game Minecraft. A sandbox game that allows the player to build tools, buildings, and just about anything that comes to mind using in-world resources, it currently boasts something like 200 million monthly players, an obscene number given that it was released 14 years ago. One could fairly argue that it is the most important video game of all time. All of which naturally begged the question: how could Hollywood make some money off of it? Enter A Minecraft Movie.
Perhaps I’m missing the point by seriously considering the quality of this film. Admittedly, it’s very self-aware about being unserious. But children’s media doesn’t have to be frivolous or meaningless. On the contrary, it can easily hold value that appeals to all ages. Think of the first Ice Age, a film that was definitely directed at children but still had real stakes, serious characters, and a compelling message. We should demand and expect good writing and meaningful stories.
More importantly, A Minecraft Movie has made over $700 million at the box office, as of this writing. Quality and character of the film aside, it’s making serious money, for bet… oh, who am I kidding here, it’s for worse.
If you squint at A Minecraft Movie just right, it does seem to be trying to say something. Usually, that thing is “Hey, remember that thing from the game? Here it is!” Fan service is mostly harmless when earned, and can even be an enhancement. But here, it’s so blatant that it falls flat.
Which leads us to the primary problems with the film. Insofar as there is a story outline, it can be boiled down to a disparate group of people who are brought together by circumstance, are transported into the world of Minecraft and are forced to learn and grow by obstacles they encounter. That’s about as good an outline as you could get for a movie with this (questionable) premise. But whatever potential it might have had is thwarted by the execution.
Whatever meaning and character development is offered by A Minecraft Movie is largely confined to the brother-sister combo of Natalie (Emma Myers) and Henry (Sebastian Eugene Hansen). Natalie is trying to fill the shoes left by her recently deceased mother, but finds it hard to relate to her brother. Henry, for his part, is bullied at school for being eccentric. Throughout the story, Natalie learns to be more confident in herself, and Henry learns not to be ashamed of his creativity. Their arcs in total are both mediocre and still the best part of the film, since there’s at least something there.
The adult characters are the film’s worst aspect, by contrast. Danielle Brooks’s Dawn could properly be described as a non-character who is just kind of there, which makes her the best of the three. Jason Momoa’s (famed for his excellent portrayal of Khal Drogo in the first season of Game of Thrones) Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison and Jack Black’s Steve are aggressively annoying. Worse, their eye-rolling attempts at humor undermine whatever tone and stakes might otherwise have been achieved.
You might almost think Steve has a good scene towards the end of the film when he chooses to leave the Minecraft world after Natalie implores him to use his creativity in the real one. It’s a good message that while video games can inspire people, you shouldn’t lose yourself in them. There’d be a lot more to criticize the writers for, had they had him make the opposite decision.
But the why of Steve making this choice leaves much to be desired. It seems that it’s not because the experiences that he’s gone through have changed his perspectives and values. Rather, it’s because the movie is over and he hasn’t thought about leaving before, so why not? It’s not a character-driven decision.
If there’s a message from A Minecraft Movie, it’s that you shouldn’t lose your creativity as you grow up and enter the “real world.” That the antagonists are a slave society of pigs that categorically oppose creativity and instead are monomaniacally focused on mining gold makes that idea as subtle as a gunshot. There certainly is something to be said about inspiring creativity. It’s just a shame that there wasn’t nearly enough employed here to make A Minecraft Movie a better film.
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