What’s become clear in the last decade or so is that any intellectual property can become a great movie if it’s treated with enough imagination and creativity. So, it’s no surprise that we have A Minecraft Movie, a film version of the wildly successful video game where players mine cubes of material and use them to craft structures, weapons, vehicles, and whatever else they care to invent. I hate to report, though, that the charm that has won the game hundreds of millions of users around the world is little in evidence in this big-screen adventure.
The story begins with young, orphaned Henry (Sebastian Hansen) and his older sister/legal guardian Natalie (Emma Myers) moving to a small town in Idaho, where the boy befriends Garrett “Garbage Man” Garrison (Jason Momoa), a washed-up video-game champion and owner of a gaming store that’s about to go under. When Henry finds a glowing cube in Garrett’s shop, the thing opens a portal that pulls them, Natalie, and their Realtor/zookeeper Dawn (Danielle Brooks) into the Overworld, a place made of Minecraft blocks where night falls every 20 minutes or so.
Honestly, the best stuff in the movie comes in Idaho, as the townspeople of this new place constantly overshare. A random schoolteacher (Matt Berry) announces to his class: “I teach gym. I teach art. Financially, I’m living in a nightmare. Most of my money is tied up in a drone kiosk at the mall.” The movie could have made more of Natalie’s job as a social media coordinator for a potato-chip factory full of geriatric employees, though someone does mention that her career goal is to get the company’s account up to 75 followers. The film is directed by Napoleon Dynamite’s Jared Hess, and he gives us a spectacular tater tot dish prepared by Natalie as well as some of that film’s deadpan sense of humor.
Alas, you can feel it all leaking away when the characters reach the Overworld. It’s ruled by Steve (Jack Black), a doorknob salesman who finds true fulfillment building giant Minecraft projects. He promises to bring the team back to Earth if they reunite him with his pet wolf, Dennis, and help him defeat Malgosha (voiced by Rachel House), the queen of the Nether who wants to take over the Overworld and mine it for gold until it collapses.
The game gives its millions of users a sense of purpose and joy from building digital palaces and fortresses, and Stephen Chbosky’s Wonder is better at capturing that feeling than this film. Actually, forget that. We’d settle for just a bunch of funny jokes, but the gags’ effectiveness and Hess’ sense of pacing desert us in the Overworld. The Lego Movie was better at building its fantasy environment out of 3D bricks, and if you want to point out that this movie is working with practical effects, I’d say that Barbie did better with those at creating a world like the one that kids imagine with real sets and props. The ones here look all too much like sets, and the Minecraft monsters generate neither fear nor awe nor any other emotion.
To compensate, the estimable actors here all scream their lines in misguided efforts to make this seem like fun. The only cast member who finds something like the proper groove is Jennifer Coolidge in a relatively small role as Henry’s vice principal, who stays back in Idaho and falls in love with a Minecraft villager who has found his way into the Gem State. The other plotlines, however, feel like so much padding, and the five credited screenwriters have the characters run hither and yon trying to give some story to a game that famously has no plot. Yes, intellectual properties can make great movies, but it takes a filmmaker with peculiar talents, and A Minecraft Movie didn’t find one.
A Minecraft Movie
Starring Jack Black and Jason Momoa. Directed by Jared Hess. Written by Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer, Neil Widener, Gavin James, and Chris Galletta. Rated PG.
