On Thursday, April 3rd—an absolute fever dream of a movie was released in theaters around America, A Minecraft Movie. A game adaptation-based movie that earned itself a 6.1 out of 10 on IMDb, 49% on Rotten Tomatoes, and a surprisingly positive 87% on Fandango.
The main gist of the movie, for those not planning to watch the movie—though I would definitely recommend it—consists of a group of four being pulled into a portal that leaves them stranded in a world paralleling the game it’s based off of. Alongside uncomfortably detailed graphics, the main goal in the movie is make it back home with the help of the game’s protagonist, Steve.
As for my opinion on it—I thought it was a great movie with the general idea that it’s quite literally made for kids. It’s why I kept lightheart expectations before watching the movie, though it certainly didn’t disappoint. Of course with a movie that centered around a younger audience, there’s going to be less than decent writing in almost every scene.
It doesn’t mean every scene was bad though! My favorite scenes were the ones that presented the secondary plot of the movie, Vice Principal Marlene and the villager she accidentally runs over with her car. The sub-plot is just surprisingly comedic moments with obviously intended romance that eventually builds up into one of the end credit scenes—the villager somehow learning basic English while Marlene learns “Villager”.
The good scenes however don’t take away from the absurd amount of one liners in the movie. Almost every other statement a character makes is somehow a stand alone joke or remark about what’s happening. It’s obviously not bad to use one liners in a movie, especially a kids one of course, I just feel like some were just unnecessary to an extent. I don’t mean the popular ones like “Chicken Jockey,” or “Water bucket—release!” I just mean the remarks that literally add nothing in a scene, something that could be taken out and it wouldn’t change the moment at all.
On the mention of one liners, two stuck out to me in probably the worst way they could. By worst I mean that they just put me through actual shock that I heard the phrase aloud.
“First we mine, then we craft. Let’s Minecraft!” Worst nightmare scenario. Genuinely thought we hit rock bottom during the first song sung by Steve, “Steve’s Lava Chicken,” until I heard this during one of the last scenes in the movie. This type of one liner was one of the things I expected to hear in the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie. I’m not surprised or annoyed that it was present in this one since the title was practically begging for a corny line to be made related to it.
“Just relax, let my hips guide you—it’s the only way!” I don’t know how to even explain the context of this scene. The line, another by Steve, was during the Elytra scene where Garrett, Steve, and Henry use the wings to get away from the Piglin. Steve had blurted this out since he’s shown on Garrett’s back pulling on strands of his hair and guiding the direction they were going. This happened since Steve had forgotten to grab three Elytras rather than two he gave to Garrett and Henry.
The one thing I really liked realizing about the movie was probably the very item that causes the movie to happen, that the “Orb of Dominance,” is the small crystal shown in beacons. It’s why it ended up casting such a bright light into the sky when the Sorceress, the main bad guy, uses it to open a large nether portal and attempt to get rid of all creativity in the overworld.
I honestly don’t know why I really liked figuring this out, though I’m guessing it’s from the fact beacons were even mentioned since I feel like I don’t see people use them in builds anymore on the actual game itself.
While I would heavily recommend watching the movie before it’s gone from theaters, I give it a 7/10. Not too good nor bad, I just think some of the writing tended to kill a couple scenes. By now though, most theaters have more chilled out audiences. Something you probably saw on TikTok, some clips of almost out of control groups during the first two days.
Still—watch the movie when you can, it’s definitely better than anticipated!