“As a child, I yearned for the mines, but something always got in the way. But the call of the mines was too strong. So one day I started digging, and digging until I found this. A wonderland with anything you can imagine is possible. As long as what you imagine can be built out of blocks.”
Unlike most of my fellow movie critics, I actually grew up playing Minecraft.

As one of the best selling and most financially successful video games of all time, a film based on Minecraft was all but inevitable. As such, I will be analyzing this movie through more than just a purely critical lens, but also seeing how true it is to the original game.
When Jared Hess was announced to be directing the film, just after his Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short Film for 2022’s “Ninety-Five Senses,” I was cautiously optimistic, but not positive that the final product would be good. While he has had previous success with his independently produced 2004 film “Napoleon Dynamite,” none of his other movies have had such glowing reviews from my fellow critics. Still, it ended up that the movie was indeed put in good hands after all.
The plot follows a brother and sister named Henry (played by Sebastian Eugene Hansen) and Natalie (played by Emma Myers, star of 2022’s “Wednesday”) who move to the small town of Chuglass, Idaho. They meet a real estate agent named Dawn (played by Danielle Brooks, who was Oscar nominated for her role in 2023’s

“The Color Purple”) and a failing video game store owner Garrett “The Garbage Man” (played by Jason Momoa) who stumble upon a magical cube shaped orb that leads them to a portal to another dimension within an abandoned mine.
This is the Overworld, and they soon meet another person named Steve (played by Jack Black, collaborating with Hess again after 2006’s “Nacho Libre”) who has lived in the Overworld for several years. He is trying to get the orb to save his dog, Dennis, from the Evil Piglins from the Nether. They go on an adventure to both save Dennis and return home.
For some inexplicable reason, there also is a subplot where Henry’s elementary school vice principal (played by Jennifer Coolidge, star of 2001’s “Legally Blonde”) meets a nitwit Villager whom she runs over with her car and proceeds to fall head over heels in love with.

This may have been superfluous, and easily my least favorite part of the movie.
Many of Hess’ stylistic trademarks are on full display in this film, with its Idaho setting and tater tot pizza reminiscent of “Napoleon Dynamite.” If you are used to and enjoy his brand of offbeat humor, then you will probably have a good time with this film.
Fans of the game and Minecraft related media will certainly find references galore within the movie itself, including a tribute to the late streamer Technoblade who died of a metastatic sarcoma in 2022, cameos from both the game’s lead developer Jens “jeb_” Bergensten and the famous Minecraft YouTuber DanTDM, and the music disc Pigstep being relevant to the story. I am certain that there are far more that I missed, which will be exciting for the hardcore fans to experience for themselves.
The visual effects and style of the film were less distracting than I expected them to be, and the CGI used in the film holds up throughout the entire runtime. Whatever they were trying to accomplish, they succeeded in spades, but did we really need a live action CGI hybrid with washed out colors?
Some of the references to modern meme culture did come off as a little “cringey,” as the kids say. One of the Piglin generals was named General Chungus, and one character does refer to “unaliving” at one point. It comes across as an attempt to sanitize the material for easier social media engagement, which seemed inorganic. The internet has already turned Steve’s exclamations of “Flint and Steel!” and “Chicken

Jockey!” into memes, and they are both organic and humorous.
The film’s ending may be a bit cliché with yet another blue laser beam reaching out into the sky mixed with a climactic final battle, but it was overall decently well done.
I laughed with the movie far more than I laughed at the movie, and that is all you can really hope for when going to see a family oriented

blockbuster. My final rating for “A Minecraft Movie” is a surprisingly enjoyable 7/10.