‘A Minecraft Movie’ review: blockhead video game adaptation needs shaping up

The secret to a good video game adaptation? Stick to the source material. That’s easy to do when you’ve got the emotionally-charged story of The Last Of Us to pull from or are building out Fallout’s dark and distinctive, post-apocalyptic world, but it’s more complicated when the game isn’t so straightforward. Take Minecraft, for example, which has become one of the biggest-selling games of all time by giving players total freedom to do whatever they like. And we’re not just talking about choosing how you want to defeat the game’s final boss – Minecraft users typically create entire environments within its blockified sandbox, combining the best bits of Lego, The Sims and their own imaginations.

A Minecraft Movie is far less inventive. The film starts with a hefty chunk of exposition from Jack Black’s enthusiastic Minecraft megafan Steve, introducing us to the alternative dimension called The Overworld, a cartoonish place where “anything you can imagine, you can build”. There’s also The Nether, a joyless, hellish land that’s ruled by wicked Pig sorceress Malgosha, who cares more about gold than artistic self-expression. This struggle between creativity and making cash is the driving force behind everything that unfolds.

Taking heavy inspiration from 2017’s Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle, the plot revolves around a group of misfits who are sucked into The Overworld by accident and tasked with defending this lush, green paradise from pantomime baddie Malgosha – who wants to invade and destroy it. Only if they succeed can they go home.

There’s Jason Momoa’s Garrett ‘The Garbage Man’ Garrison, a one-time champion of ‘80s arcade game Hulk City Rampage – now struggling to move past those glory days. Wednesday favourite Emma Myers’ nervy Natalie has to deal with the death of her mother while trying to step up and parent little brother Henry (Sebastian Hansen), a highly-intelligent kid whose brainy behaviour make him a target for bullies at his new school. Rounding out the gang is Dawn (Danielle Brooks), a part-time estate agent frustrated with the need for so many side-hustles, one of which involves turning her car into a mobile zoo.

Spanning several generations, this unlikely gang are easy to relate to but A Minecraft Movie spends little time fleshing out their backstories. Who has time for emotional arcs when there’s another wacky fight around the corner? Steve constantly tells the group about the boundless power of imagination but rather than finding a clever solution, they simply overcome every problem that emerges with brute force.

It’s a shame because lurking just underneath the very basic, surface-level plot is a wonderfully strange film. Director Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre) fully embraces the quirky culture of Minecraft, which looks absolutely gorgeous on the big screen. Moments of survival horror are genuinely terrifying as our reluctant heroes fight off hordes of zombies, skeletons and the game’s bizarre tree-like mascot, the Creepers. There are also plenty of Easter eggs to tie this blockbuster to the beloved blocky game, including a touching tribute to legendary player Technoblade, who passed away from cancer in 2022 aged just 23.

The surreal subplot involving Jennifer Coolidge’s eccentric Vice Principal Marlene dating an escaped Minecraft villager is bags of fun and Black’s various musical riffs have a touch of ‘Peaches’ viral magic from 2023’s The Super Mario Bros Movie – but none are as good as fan-made parody ‘Placing Blocks And Shit’.

Unfortunately, A Minecraft Movie feels more like an advert for the game rather than a celebration of what makes it great. There is just enough in the brisk 101-minute runtime to inspire newcomers to check out The Overworld for themselves but you’d think a film about the awesome power of creativity would be a bit more innovative.