REVIEW: 'A Minecraft Movie' Is Only For Minecraft Fans And That's Ok
Four misfits are suddenly pulled through a mysterious portal into a bizarre cubic wonderland that thrives on imagination. To get back home they'll have to master this world while embarking on a quest with an unexpected expert crafter.
This is a movie I had been dreading for a while. A stretched out, CGI'd brain rot session based around a game I've never played. Nothing about it is attractive to me. That said, I've ripped the bandaid off and here is my report.
My biggest takeaway is what I called out in the title: This movie is made for fans of the game. In a lot of video game adaptations, they will make a core story that appeals to laymen, who aren't fans of the game, while tossing in a few nuggets for viewers who are fans of the game. Those nuggets typically read as infrared for the laymen, not affecting their viewing experience while making the fans experience better. That's not really the case here. Most of the major needle drops, comedic moments etc. require the viewer to have experience with the game. How do I know this? Because I never played the game and was completely out on the joke on multiple points while people were going nuts.
This may seem like a negative but, in this case, I actually don't think it is. Minecraft isn't some retro shit or tiny indie title. It is literally the best selling video game of all time by a significant margin. Damn near 2x as much sales as the second place title (GTA V). So, if there was ever a time to make a video game adaptation that is fairly inside baseball, this was that time. This is all basically for me to say that I can't say I enjoyed much of the movie because I didn't have the frame of reference. I certainly didn't have a single moment making me want to do this:
As far as the stuff I can comment on, the cast was fine. Like Klemmer noted in his review, Jack Black was very bought in and certainly carries the weight of the movie. Momoa is doing a bad impression of Randy Daytona from 'Balls of Fury' but the main kid? Man, tough to find a better 80's movie style geek. Everyone else was basically just along for the ride and not given much to operate with. The humor that didn't require an insider reference didn't do much for me and the story was a recycled one you've seen a million times before.
So, while its not a movie for me and not one that I would ever recommend to people who haven't played the game/have kids, that doesn't really matter. Young people seem to be loving it, as evident from it's box office numbers. With a $313m opening, it's set the following records (per Deadline)
- Biggest opening of 2025 (Bonnie Blue may take this record by years end)
- Biggest opening for a video game movie
- Biggest opening for a Warner Bros-Legendary movie (Beating 'The Dark Knight Rises')
- Warner Brothers biggest Saturday EVER
- Only movie in history to make $50+ million on Friday and make more on Saturday.
So it's a big, CGI, stupid mess but people are flocking to see it and, clearly, some fans are having a fun time. So, it's not for me, but who cares.
