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So, I watched ‘A Minecraft Movie’...
7 months ago
The last time I dragged myself to a cinema on release day was for the first Sonic movie. That was over five years ago. I can’t be arsed to enjoy new media anymore. The bar’s gone so low it’s tunnelling through fucking dinosaur bones, and I know better stuff was being made decades prior. So when A Minecraft Movie came out, I naturally saw it as Jack Black’s latest desperate swing at staying relevant before he pulls a Shia LaBeouf. But I bought a ticket and watched it like everyone else.
AHAHHAHAHAHA Just kidding! I saw the workprint version. Why? Because I’m not gonna pay money to see this if I’m already convinced it’s bad. Why should I? I would have paid for this out of curiosity’s sake if it had anything going on beyond the novelty of “haha funy minecraft” and the stupid meme bait. But nope, the story sucked, so I sat through the whole thing.
I will say that it’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be. It’s not the worst movie ever, not even this year, especially since Snow Trite came out recently to a bewildering audience of nobody (lol). It’s not even the worst video game movie I’ve seen, Uwe Boll made four terrible video game movies and I can’t decide which is worse. But saying something isn’t as bad as another thing shouldn’t be seen as a compliment. It’s like saying that an anchovy pizza is better than a liquid pile of shit. Comparing something that only a select few would get any enjoyment out of with something nobody in their right mind would enjoy isn’t a compliment. This has NOTHING going for it other than the meme bait people latch onto for ironic humour’s sake like the Morbius movie.
And if you’re gonna bitch at me like “why the hell are you criticising a movie aimed at kids, why do you care this much?” then you’re not getting any fucking carrot cake, you got it? Because we are spoiled by a rich history of movies that are made with children in mind that are just as enjoyable for adults as well. Hell, that’s half of the reason the furry community even exists in the first place. One example I watched recently is Wall-E, who did a dystopian Sci-fi story completely differently from how one is usually done. How about Shrek, which satirised the Disney formula and turned the entire thing on its head? What about the Don Bluth movies or Disney’s golden era? The Goonies was another one that came up in conversation. I could go on but looking at trite like this and comparing it to movies which are funnier, cleverer and had something else going for it than raw novelty, it cheapens the experience. So no, I don’t think I’m asking too much for a movie designed for children to entertain me. And if you don’t think so, I’ve got a bunch of keys in my back pocket you’d just LOVE to watch.
Honestly, if someone told me that I was not about to watch ‘A Minecraft Movie’, but a highly elaborate, highly budgeted shitpost by 4chan which in no way resembled the final product, I’d believe them.
The pacing is a complete disaster. Steve starts off the film somehow knowing everything with no explanation, where the magical macguffin is in a mineshaft he’s never explored and immediately gets it to work. He then learns how to build structures and contraptions in this new world on an absurd scale. He just… does it. Then he builds a portal and goes to the Nether, which he didn’t even need to do, but the plot needs him to do random shit, I guess. Then comes the scene where some so-called ‘gamer legend’ blows $900 on a storage container with an Atari Cosmos, a prototype console that the movie itself admits was never released (so how the hell is it boxed?). We cut to two literal children driving a car and moving house like it’s just another Wednesday. All of this? Happens in the first act. The rest of the movie continues at the same disjointed pace with character arcs sprinkled in to add conflict and drama, which seem easily avoidable if the characters had any sense at all.
Speaking of the characters, Jason Momoa and Danielle Brooks do a passable performance given the material they are working with, the child actors are meh whatever they’re the same child actors you get in stock Nickelodeon movies. However, the main cast struck me as people as unrealistically comfortable and in their element when confronted with a world they’re not familiar with. If Steve had been trapped in the mine as a child and been raised by the villagers, this would make sense. But no, he’s an adult here, and like I said before, he magically knows what he needs to do with no prior knowledge. In the second overworld scene, the characters unexpectedly learn to break things with their hands while under a constant onslaught of monsters. Again, it would have really helped if say… they ran to that village for shelter? Maybe see some lights in the distance and legged it there? Maybe let the iron golems take them out, not that you’d know that would happen. Give them some breathing room to figure things out organically? It’s what fresh-out-of-water characters would do in this situation.
As for the supporting cast, the villain of this movie is a complete joke. They made ‘the piglin witch’ out of whole cloth and went with it. And what’s even worse than a generic villain is their motivation and overall goal. For some reason, this piglin wanted to do a talent show (???????) and nobody liked it because it wasn’t getting gold? So she decided to blame creativity (?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!??) and vowed to destroy it everywhere it was seen, so she could get more gold? Not only does this make barely any sense whatsoever, but it sounds more reasonable for the witch to HATE gold because of this rather than hoard more of the stuff. Also, it’s never explained why the mystical macguffin can bring eternal night, much less than a means for getting to and from the real world. The big climax the movie built up to has almost no stakes, especially since it’s demonstrated the mobs can enter the real world. So…… why didn’t the final showdown happen in the real world?
There's one scene that stands out as purely idiotic. It's when Steve is showing everyone how to use the crafting table. And the young inventor kid just pulls out a bunch of random junk from the real world, like a battery and a tater tot, and ends up making a tater tot gun. What? Since when was it ever established that this is possible? What rules exist to allow this to happen? Why isn't it ever mentioned again or used more to greater effect? Because in spite of the intention to explain this is a child inventor, it really looks as though he's just throwing random shit on a crafting table expecting it to magically create something cohesive and desirable... MUCH LIKE THE WRITERS FOR THIS MOVIE!
I genuinely laughed twice throughout the whole showing and that’s sad for a comedy to have only two jokes that work. The hardest I laughed with the movie was when that piglin brute was introduced. He stomped around, looked like a mean son of a bitch, then he opened his mouth and sounded like an airhead. Too bad the piglin witch killed him off after the failed village attack so we can’t see him in “A Minecraft Sequel”! The moments I never laughed was whenever Jack Black was on the screen. He ruins every scene he’s involved in with his insincere character work, his stupid face, the bad out-of-place musical numbers, his deliberately laboured line delivery and his unwillingness to stray from the overly hammy manchild acting. It’s already got old and I wonder how many more movies he’s going to poison to being completely unwatchable.
So the overall story is weak, the villain is forgettable, and the humour fails to land 98% of the time. Is it too much to demand something good to watch with a story that’s had some effort put into it? I could write a better fucking minecraft movie… In fact: watch!
The movie starts with a wide-angle shot of an abandoned mine, with two brothers going to play as miners in there. One of them (Steve) finds the macguffin and finds himself sucked to another world, to the disbelief and horror of his brother who runs away. Steve wakes up in this magical world who is soon discovered by the villagers, who takes him in as one of their own and shows him their ways. He then learns how to build and survive as a necessity, and intends to live the rest of his life there. There’s some bouncy, joyous moments where he looks like he’s enjoying himself, and all is well. Meanwhile, time passes on the outside and his brother gives up all hope of ever seeing Steve again. We fast forward 30 years: his brother is now married with children of his own, and they discover things that lead them to those ill-fated mines. After some understandable family tension and some new clues about Steve’s disappearance, they seek help from a detective with a long-standing interest in the cold case.
They then all journey to the overworld. Once there, they have the bad fortune of turning up at night, and have to run for the nearby village, hoping they’ll find shelter there. They do so and discover the way this world works and ask the villagers for help to find his brother. By the time they find him, they discover he’s become a reclusive, eccentric genius with a deep understanding of how things work in this world, and there’s a heartwarming reunion. However, the endermen show up, having found the macguffin, followed by the ENDER DRAGON, who knows there’s a world outside to conquer. He needs this thing in order to be free, and now he has what he’s looking for, thanks to the outsiders. Now, it’s a race against time for the heroes to go on a grand tour, find the things they need, traverse the nether, and ultimately the end, and fight the ender dragon. A fight ensues where they are ultimately victorious, and Steve is confronted with a decision to either stay in the world he knew, or leave it behind so he can stay with his family. It’s an intensely moral question where there isn’t an easy answer, but he ultimately decides to stay behind. This is his world, and he has a new family that depends on him, and everyone lives happily ever after. The end.
There, I told you I could write a better movie, and I did. You’re welcome!
Oh, I was told that I should put a spoiler warning on my post to warn people about them. So here you go - Warning: This review contains spoilers.
AHAHHAHAHAHA Just kidding! I saw the workprint version. Why? Because I’m not gonna pay money to see this if I’m already convinced it’s bad. Why should I? I would have paid for this out of curiosity’s sake if it had anything going on beyond the novelty of “haha funy minecraft” and the stupid meme bait. But nope, the story sucked, so I sat through the whole thing.
I will say that it’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be. It’s not the worst movie ever, not even this year, especially since Snow Trite came out recently to a bewildering audience of nobody (lol). It’s not even the worst video game movie I’ve seen, Uwe Boll made four terrible video game movies and I can’t decide which is worse. But saying something isn’t as bad as another thing shouldn’t be seen as a compliment. It’s like saying that an anchovy pizza is better than a liquid pile of shit. Comparing something that only a select few would get any enjoyment out of with something nobody in their right mind would enjoy isn’t a compliment. This has NOTHING going for it other than the meme bait people latch onto for ironic humour’s sake like the Morbius movie.
And if you’re gonna bitch at me like “why the hell are you criticising a movie aimed at kids, why do you care this much?” then you’re not getting any fucking carrot cake, you got it? Because we are spoiled by a rich history of movies that are made with children in mind that are just as enjoyable for adults as well. Hell, that’s half of the reason the furry community even exists in the first place. One example I watched recently is Wall-E, who did a dystopian Sci-fi story completely differently from how one is usually done. How about Shrek, which satirised the Disney formula and turned the entire thing on its head? What about the Don Bluth movies or Disney’s golden era? The Goonies was another one that came up in conversation. I could go on but looking at trite like this and comparing it to movies which are funnier, cleverer and had something else going for it than raw novelty, it cheapens the experience. So no, I don’t think I’m asking too much for a movie designed for children to entertain me. And if you don’t think so, I’ve got a bunch of keys in my back pocket you’d just LOVE to watch.
Honestly, if someone told me that I was not about to watch ‘A Minecraft Movie’, but a highly elaborate, highly budgeted shitpost by 4chan which in no way resembled the final product, I’d believe them.
The pacing is a complete disaster. Steve starts off the film somehow knowing everything with no explanation, where the magical macguffin is in a mineshaft he’s never explored and immediately gets it to work. He then learns how to build structures and contraptions in this new world on an absurd scale. He just… does it. Then he builds a portal and goes to the Nether, which he didn’t even need to do, but the plot needs him to do random shit, I guess. Then comes the scene where some so-called ‘gamer legend’ blows $900 on a storage container with an Atari Cosmos, a prototype console that the movie itself admits was never released (so how the hell is it boxed?). We cut to two literal children driving a car and moving house like it’s just another Wednesday. All of this? Happens in the first act. The rest of the movie continues at the same disjointed pace with character arcs sprinkled in to add conflict and drama, which seem easily avoidable if the characters had any sense at all.
Speaking of the characters, Jason Momoa and Danielle Brooks do a passable performance given the material they are working with, the child actors are meh whatever they’re the same child actors you get in stock Nickelodeon movies. However, the main cast struck me as people as unrealistically comfortable and in their element when confronted with a world they’re not familiar with. If Steve had been trapped in the mine as a child and been raised by the villagers, this would make sense. But no, he’s an adult here, and like I said before, he magically knows what he needs to do with no prior knowledge. In the second overworld scene, the characters unexpectedly learn to break things with their hands while under a constant onslaught of monsters. Again, it would have really helped if say… they ran to that village for shelter? Maybe see some lights in the distance and legged it there? Maybe let the iron golems take them out, not that you’d know that would happen. Give them some breathing room to figure things out organically? It’s what fresh-out-of-water characters would do in this situation.
As for the supporting cast, the villain of this movie is a complete joke. They made ‘the piglin witch’ out of whole cloth and went with it. And what’s even worse than a generic villain is their motivation and overall goal. For some reason, this piglin wanted to do a talent show (???????) and nobody liked it because it wasn’t getting gold? So she decided to blame creativity (?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!??) and vowed to destroy it everywhere it was seen, so she could get more gold? Not only does this make barely any sense whatsoever, but it sounds more reasonable for the witch to HATE gold because of this rather than hoard more of the stuff. Also, it’s never explained why the mystical macguffin can bring eternal night, much less than a means for getting to and from the real world. The big climax the movie built up to has almost no stakes, especially since it’s demonstrated the mobs can enter the real world. So…… why didn’t the final showdown happen in the real world?
There's one scene that stands out as purely idiotic. It's when Steve is showing everyone how to use the crafting table. And the young inventor kid just pulls out a bunch of random junk from the real world, like a battery and a tater tot, and ends up making a tater tot gun. What? Since when was it ever established that this is possible? What rules exist to allow this to happen? Why isn't it ever mentioned again or used more to greater effect? Because in spite of the intention to explain this is a child inventor, it really looks as though he's just throwing random shit on a crafting table expecting it to magically create something cohesive and desirable... MUCH LIKE THE WRITERS FOR THIS MOVIE!
I genuinely laughed twice throughout the whole showing and that’s sad for a comedy to have only two jokes that work. The hardest I laughed with the movie was when that piglin brute was introduced. He stomped around, looked like a mean son of a bitch, then he opened his mouth and sounded like an airhead. Too bad the piglin witch killed him off after the failed village attack so we can’t see him in “A Minecraft Sequel”! The moments I never laughed was whenever Jack Black was on the screen. He ruins every scene he’s involved in with his insincere character work, his stupid face, the bad out-of-place musical numbers, his deliberately laboured line delivery and his unwillingness to stray from the overly hammy manchild acting. It’s already got old and I wonder how many more movies he’s going to poison to being completely unwatchable.
So the overall story is weak, the villain is forgettable, and the humour fails to land 98% of the time. Is it too much to demand something good to watch with a story that’s had some effort put into it? I could write a better fucking minecraft movie… In fact: watch!
The movie starts with a wide-angle shot of an abandoned mine, with two brothers going to play as miners in there. One of them (Steve) finds the macguffin and finds himself sucked to another world, to the disbelief and horror of his brother who runs away. Steve wakes up in this magical world who is soon discovered by the villagers, who takes him in as one of their own and shows him their ways. He then learns how to build and survive as a necessity, and intends to live the rest of his life there. There’s some bouncy, joyous moments where he looks like he’s enjoying himself, and all is well. Meanwhile, time passes on the outside and his brother gives up all hope of ever seeing Steve again. We fast forward 30 years: his brother is now married with children of his own, and they discover things that lead them to those ill-fated mines. After some understandable family tension and some new clues about Steve’s disappearance, they seek help from a detective with a long-standing interest in the cold case.
They then all journey to the overworld. Once there, they have the bad fortune of turning up at night, and have to run for the nearby village, hoping they’ll find shelter there. They do so and discover the way this world works and ask the villagers for help to find his brother. By the time they find him, they discover he’s become a reclusive, eccentric genius with a deep understanding of how things work in this world, and there’s a heartwarming reunion. However, the endermen show up, having found the macguffin, followed by the ENDER DRAGON, who knows there’s a world outside to conquer. He needs this thing in order to be free, and now he has what he’s looking for, thanks to the outsiders. Now, it’s a race against time for the heroes to go on a grand tour, find the things they need, traverse the nether, and ultimately the end, and fight the ender dragon. A fight ensues where they are ultimately victorious, and Steve is confronted with a decision to either stay in the world he knew, or leave it behind so he can stay with his family. It’s an intensely moral question where there isn’t an easy answer, but he ultimately decides to stay behind. This is his world, and he has a new family that depends on him, and everyone lives happily ever after. The end.
There, I told you I could write a better movie, and I did. You’re welcome!
Oh, I was told that I should put a spoiler warning on my post to warn people about them. So here you go - Warning: This review contains spoilers.
Warren Heath
~druss666uk
OP
Oh yeah, side note. If you're one of these people going to the cinemas while they're screening this and trashing the place every time Jack Black says "MINECRAFT REFERENCE xD" fuck you.
