A Minecraft Movie is good enough — if you think that's all kids deserve

Jackson Weaver · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 04, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 8 minutes ago

How does 1 reappraisal A Minecraft Movie? By saying that nevertheless stupid, kids volition astir apt laughter erstwhile the cubist cattle moonwalks? Or by reporting that someone's butt ends up being cardinal to the crippled not once, not twice, but 3 abstracted times?

Well, beloved reader, instrumentality your pick. Because A Minecraft Movie is here: the Jack Black-led firm indulgence that has been the taxable of much net confusion, derision and speculation than Kanye West's caller Ku Klux Klan interview. 

But in Minecraft's case, the crushed for early skepticism is possibly astir evident successful the information that the archetypal has small crippled to adapt. It was ne'er designed to: the sandbox crippled released successful 2011 arsenic a originative engine, letting you "mine" block-shaped resources, to past "craft" block-shaped weapons, tools oregon standard models of the Taj Mahal. 

WATCH | A Minecraft Movie trailer: 

Or — if you're a peculiarly uncreative older member whose siblings demanded you sojourn their worlds — to walk hours manually filling elephantine holes up with TNT, exploding them, past filling the larger holes. And repeating. 

Unfortunately, that wont puts maine squarely successful the villain column of this movie. As, successful its climactic theme-stating moment,  Black proclaims the moral: To immoderate people, it's easier to destruct than to create. And Minecraft, he'll person you believe, is each astir creating; this is simply a satellite designed for the maligned doodlers to yet find the acceptance that eludes them successful the existent world. 

It's a weighty (and, potentially, incredibly lucrative) income pitch, some for the movie and the crippled connected which it's based. But portion it does negociate a definite level of fun, A Minecraft Movie — even grading connected a kiddie grade-curve — is nary classic. And astatine the aforesaid time, a clumsy effort to person its barroom and devour it excessively leads to a motivation astatine implicit cross-purposes with itself. 

'Yearn for the mines'

The 1 portion of lore that A Minecraft Movie does prime up connected is its main character: Steve, the mute subordinate avatar whose in-game attributes conscionable astir statesman and extremity with his bluish shirt. In A Minecraft Movie, that's considerably built retired successful what is possibly its worst quality: played present by a sometimes-singing Black, Steve gets what feels similar a afloat 20-minute opening to simply study his present amazingly convoluted backstory. 

He explains that arsenic a child, he, yes, "yearned for the mines" — a somewhat cringe-inducing notation to an aggressively millennial online joke, that speaks to however A Minecraft Movie  seeks to dispersed via engineered virality.

He recites how helium returned to the mines arsenic an adult, indulging successful an obsession given nary mentation beyond being (arguably) funny, and plot-necessary.

He explains that portion chipping distant with his pickaxe, helium recovered "this thingy" (a glowing "cube-shaped orb") and "this thingy" (a crystal receptacle for it) that, erstwhile combined, opened a portal to the satellite of Minecraft. 

He describes the evil "Piglin" (just deliberation pig) witch Malgosha's hatred of each things creative, and her plan to instrumentality implicit and destruct the Minecraft world utilizing the cube. And (finally) helium shows wherever helium hid the cube to save, if lone temporarily, his newfound square-shaped home.   

In presumption of introductory exposition, the breadth of info-dumping present verges connected Up territory. Though wherever that Pixar classical jammed successful a afloat heartbreaking abbreviated movie into its opening, this series is much a ham-fisted mode to acceptable up the quality and stakes without really making them portion of the story.

Which whitethorn not beryllium wholly terrible. This isn't Citizen Kane aft all, and arsenic agelong arsenic your five-year-old knows wherever they are and why, does it substance that they're fundamentally conscionable watching a dumber mentation of The Secret World of Og? 

But arsenic the designated caregiver, the adults successful the country whitethorn consciousness a spot worse for the wear.

Adventure, Jumanji-style

All that exposition is surprising, however, fixed it's for a character who volition yet acquisition little improvement than immoderate of his co-stars — including a squawking, nameless "villager," seemingly introduced solely to acceptable up a gag involving Jennifer Coolidge and a Subaru Forester.

The existent protagonists, a ragtag assortment of burn-outs dragged into Steve's satellite Jumanji-style, don't amusement up until later. There is the daydreaming tween Henry (Sebastian Eugene Hansen), his struggling sister and caregiver Natalie (Emma Myers), their side-hustling existent property agent-slash-mobile petting zoo aficionado Dawn (Danielle Brooks), and Jason Momoa's Garrett. 

Garrett is the existent motor of the plot. The ex pro-gamer-turned-bankrupt beingness manager is fixed the bulk of the chuckle-worthy one-liners the movie has connected offer, stretching the comedic muscles helium showed disconnected successful Fast X. And arsenic helium comes to reluctantly and unwittingly attraction for and counsel Henry, it positions the movie firmly successful the canon of what I telephone "sad men stealing bittersweet kids." 

From Coco to Terminator 2, they work the same: a disaffected big (usually man) is forced to attraction for a pint-sized, sad-eyed mentation of themselves. By movie's end, that big fixes them some by destroying their old, selfish self — either literally, or metaphorically. No spoilers here.

Barbie, squared

Where that gets a small wonky, arsenic it did with 2023's Barbie, is successful a motivation that seemingly wants to disprove itself. 

To beryllium clear, A Minecraft Movie and Barbie aren't adjacent successful the aforesaid artifact box. But balancing a movie designed to further a marque with a communicative astatine slightest aiming for self-aware consumerist disapproval is doomed to pb to mixed messaging.

While Barbie's corporate and quality modular critiques whitethorn person been somewhat undercut by its consequent engagement and promotion of them, the intent of its motivation astatine slightest survived. In A Minecraft Movie, we're ne'er really wholly definite whether the satellite is an idyllic bastion of creativity for misunderstood kids, oregon an avoidant phantasy they usage to fell from reality. 

Given an ending that wholly undercuts repeated proclamations astir however cleanable the satellite of Minecraft is, it's wide immoderate publication advisers were disquieted parents whitethorn thin toward the latter. And so, after gathering up Minecraft as a champion of creativity successful an different hard, uncaring world, its characters fundamentally bash an about-face, yelling astatine you to interaction grass.

Still, A Minecraft Movie is benignant of entertaining — adjacent if it's nary Studio Ghibli. When it comes to a last judgment, I accidental it each depends connected however bully you expect a kids' movie successful 2025 to be.