I Watch Films: A Minecraft Movie

 

A Minecraft Movie

Steve (Jack Black) wants to be a miner, breaks into a mine, discover the Orb Of Dominance and The Earth Crystal which combined take him to the Overworld, which is the cube-designed Minecraft world. There he can mine and build things like in the game Minecraft*. He builds a perfect world for himself, including taming a dog who he calls Dennis. Then he discovers another portal to the Nether, a volcano themed world ruled by Malgosha, a piglin. Piglins turn into creepers (green zombies) when they leave the Nether but using the Orb she can control the Overworld, transform it so piglins can go there and steal all the gold. Steve gives the Orb to Dennis who takes it to the real world, closing the portal, and hiding it in his house.

Time passes; Garrett “Garbage Man” Garrison (Jason Momoa) was a video game champion in the 80s but now his video game store is failing. Getting a lead on the auction of Steve’s belongings, he bids for it, but the Atari Cosmos box turns out to be empty. He does find the Orb and Crystal and takes them back to his store. Meanwhile moving into town (Chuglass, Idaho) is Natalie (Emma Myers), getting a job at the potato chip factory, and her brother and ward Henry. Dennis uses his engineering skill to build a jetpack at school; it goes wrong and damages the giant potato chip mascot. He pays Garrett to pretend to be his uncle to get him out of trouble; back at the store he combines the Orb and Crystal, which leads the two of them to the mine and the portal.

Natalie tries to find Henry, recruiting the real estate agent (and mobile petting zoo operator) Dawn (Danielle Brooks), who is her only real contact in town. She tracks down Henry using a phone locator; in the mine all four are sucked through the portal into Minecraft world. Malgosha, learning of this, releases Steve to get the Orb, keeping Dennis as a hostage.

There follows a lot of Minecraft hijinks, using the thing where you combine items to create new items. The Earth Crystal is destroyed and Steve has to lead them to a new one. When Garrett learns that there are diamonds here he insists Steve divert their course to get some to save his failing video store. Eventually secrets are revealed, weird combinations are used and a final confrontation occurs.

This is entertaining in a kid’s film way, and striking in the cube-ness, the conversion of Minecraft graphics (which despite my failure to play I am aware of thanks to it’s cultural ubiquity, which has perhaps climaxed in this film) to appear with the live actors. Other than that I don’t really have anything to say about it.

Watch This: Live action Minecraft adventure (for kids)
Don’t Watch This: Inexplicable cube world where mined cubes are combined to make weird things

* Although I confidently attribute many of the film’s idiosyncratic elements to the game Minecraft, I’m not a player so I might be mistaken.