I’m surprised that A Minecraft Movie didn’t come sooner. The game has been one of the defining parts of video game culture for the better part of a decade or longer. Generations have grown up playing it. Parents who played it as teenagers are now teaching their kids about it. It is the single biggest phenomenon in the gaming world and the highest selling video game of all time. And at its core, it’s a game about mining and building with square blocks. No goals, no objectives, just survive and build.
So it surprises me that, in an era where huge swaths of Hollywood budgets go towards developing films based around massive IP, that no one thought to tackle Minecraft until now. And if the early box office numbers are anything to go by, it would seem like this was an easy slam dunk for Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures. It’s a shame though that there is little semblance of actual good filmmaking present in the film that was almost guaranteed to make hundreds of millions of dollars.
The plot, if you can call it that, follows a group of four individuals- washed up gaming champ Garret “The Garbage Man” Garrison (Jason Momoa), siblings Henry (Sebastian Hansen) and Natalie (Emma Myers), and real estate agent/traveling zoo owner Dawn (Danielle Brooks). The four live in the small town of Chuglass, Idaho. When they discover an orb from Minecraft’s overworld that opens a portal to that dimension. The four are rescued by Steve (Jack Black) during a zombie attack at night and they venture to find a new way home. Meanwhile, the evil piglin queen Margosha plots to steal the orb and use it to take over the Overworld.
The big issue with A Minecraft Movie isn’t that the plot is inherently bad. It’s generic as far as video game adaptations go – We’ve seen this “real people enter video game world” plot rehashed in films like Tron: Legacy or the recent Jumanji films. But the real issue here is that the execution of the story is quite poor. The film has 5 credited writers and 3 “story by” credits. That’s obnoxiously too many cooks in the kitchen. As a result, elements feel half baked, characters are wholly one note and their forced arcs are undeserved, and conflicts wrap up as quickly as they are introduced. There is an extended intro that explains both what Minecraft is and the origins of the characters of the story that takes far too long for a film about a video game. Nearly the first 25 minutes are spent just setting things up. For a 2.5-hour movie, that’s not awful. When the film is a hair over 90 minutes, that’s nearly a third of the whole film.
Now, given some of these faults, its obvious that A Minecraft Movie is going to be a huge hit. As it stands it will easily be the highest grossing film of 2025 so far, and quite possible will end the year with that mantle. Much of that can be contributed to the Gen Z/Gen Alpha demographic that has turned out in droves to see it. Theaters are packed with children and teenagers who grew up with Minecraft are seated. It’s time that Hollywood discover that children and teenagers will turn out for a film they care about. It’s IP that was made for their generation, not their parents. And I am glad that a new generation of people are discovering that the theater can be a place to be.
What I wish is that the filmmakers and director Jared Hess, most famous for Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre, had decided to make a good movie as well.
At the end of the day, there’s quite a list of things that this film attempts to accomplish but doesn’t. The characters of the story are pretty solely one note, without any actual earned development. Garret’s only feature is he’s a washed-up video game champ. Henry is just a nerdy kid who wants to be cool. Natalie is just trying to get by and care for her brother. and Dawn is just a single real estate agent with side hustles to get by. The film does nothing to expand on these characters or dive into what makes them who they are, nor does it care to.
Hess doesn’t ask for much from the talented pool of actors here. The best performance belongs to Emma Myers as Natalie, who actually brings some good moments to the character. I’ve been a fan of hers since her breakout with Netflix for Wednesday. She gives what I believe the best performance of the film. The problem with A Minecraft Movie is that most of the performances are just so over the top it gets to be too much. While I enjoyed Jason Momoa and his commitment to the bit, it can get annoying fairly quickly and Jennifer Coolidge delivers the laughs in her side plot.
But the worst offender of the main cast is Jack Black. His performance is just so far out there it borders on totally ridiculous. It feels at times that he was able to do just whatever he wanted with no borders. It just needs to be seen to be believed.
Yet there are some things that the film does well. I especially appreciated the dedication to the visuals. While the stunt effects were pretty poor, the visual landscapes of the Minecraft overworld were quite impressive. I also appreciated the commitment to creating practical sets and props that fit the Minecraft world. It makes places like the village feel totally alive and the characters present in the scenes. As a fan of the game, it was fun to actually see the props of things I’ve used in the game appear in real life.
However, with all its faults, A Minecraft Movie may end up being a net positive. If not solely for its impact on newer generations, but also for getting people – and kids in particular – back into the movie theaters and back watching movies. After an incredibly slow start to 2025, this is the right shot in the arm that the industry needed this year. Plus, a film like this making billions of dollars will allow for studios to finance smaller, better films that won’t.
Final Thoughts
A Minecraft Movie is an inherently bad film. Visually the film looks great and I suspect a great deal of nostalgia will be there for those who grew up with the game. But also the film is destined to be meme’d constantly, with tiktok clips already circulating all over the internet. It’s poorly made, poorly acted and with hardly any story it’s not very satisfying either. While it may have positive effects on people, I wish they had paired this generationally good IP with a good movie too.
1/5
To check out more of our reviews, click here. If you have suggestions for movies we should check out, email [email protected]!Â
I have been watching movies my whole life and fell in love at an early age. I was entranced by the ability for a film to whisk me away to a different universe, and that really started with the Star Wars Franchise. I'm by no means an expert and can roll with opinions that might be controversial, but that's the beauty of a film; we can all see the same thing on screen, but each of us may come away with a different interpretation of what we saw. When I'm not watching movies, I work in Marketing with my degree from Western New England University.
MY FAVORITE MOVIES: Good Will Hunting, Star Wars: A New Hope (or the whole saga), All The President's Men, Before Sunrise, Ocean's 11, In The Mood For Love and so many more...