'A Minecraft Movie' Review: Lands Firmly in the Mid Tier of Video Game Adaptations
- Alex Gilston
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
By Alex Gilston - April 6, 2025
Minecraft is one of the biggest video games of all time, so it was only natural that a film adaptation would come knocking at some point. It’s no secret that video game adaptations have been hit and miss (and we mean huge misses!), and there’s been a lot of dubious chatter since the trailers for A Minecraft Movie came out. However, this blockbuster lands firmly in the middle. It’s not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but it isn’t as egregious as some people would have you believe. In truth though, it’s a film that shows off what it’s based on with pride. So it’s hard to imagine it existing in any other way, for better and for worse.
A Minecraft Movie is based on the worldwide best-selling survival adventure game Minecraft. A game where the ceiling is your imagination. You can build anything your heart desires, you can journey anywhere you want, you can go on exciting quests, basically you can do just about anything. When A Minecraft Movie got announced it was unclear if it was going to be a narrative within the world itself, quite like Minecraft Story Mode developed by Telltale games. But instead they looked to build off the success of the Jumanji sequel, planting people from the real world into the world of Minecraft.
We’re introduced to Garret (Jason Momoa) a deadbeat former micro-celebrity who's very good at old arcade games, Henry (Sebastian Eugene Hansen) and Natalie (Emma Myers) a brother and sister who move towns after the death of their mother, and Dawn (Danielle Brooks) a real estate agent and apparent mobile zoo owner. They come together and are thrown through a portal into the over world, a luscious, albeit jarringly CGI’d, plane of existence where they meet Steve (Jack Black) who is based on the generic avatar and face of the game. To get back home they have to adventure through the land to find a thingy majigg to put another thingy majigg into (yes Jack Black does call them that in the beginning of the movie).
A Minecraft Movie takes a swing at appealing to game and non-game fans alike. Unfortunately the plethora of attempts at mainstream humour don’t always land, and the film is always at its best when it’s leaning into and showcasing the strengths of the game. That’s why fans of the game won’t be disappointed in the slightest. Most of the game features are creatively threaded through into live-action, things like crafting, building, mine-carting, wing-gliding, you even sort of get used to the animal and monster CGI despite its existence in uncanny valley territory.
One of the more puzzling narrative choices comes from a side story involving a villager, the wordless (although one should wait till the credits for a nice surprise!) inhabitants of Minecraft, traveling to the real world where he meets up with deputy head teacher Marlene, who is played by none other than Jennifer Coolidge. Interspersed between the main action in the overworld are baffling cuts to the real world where she takes this villager on a dinner date due to her being recently divorced. It feels as though it’s part of a completely different film, and yet it kind of works. It’s the main example of the fact that A Minecraft Movie doesn’t take itself seriously in any way.
Despite these singular moments dotted throughout, A Minecraft Movie falters due to the ease of the narrative's resolution. There’s maybe a surface level of character development, but there’s not enough depth in their individual stories to really latch on emotionally. The performances are as generic as you’d expect too, with Jack Black and Jason Momoa getting by playing the kind of character they always do.
The ethos of Minecraft, one that nurtures people’s creativity, is a really important one in today's day and age. We’re currently watching creativity being sapped away in front of our very eyes by generative AI that steals people’s work and takes away the process of art. A Minecraft Movie might not be a great movie, but it undoubtedly has a wonderful message. In a world that encourages us to surrender our joy in order to contribute to society, you have to fight for what you love to do.
A Minecraft Movie is out now in cinemas
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