A movie made for the block head inside of us.
We’ve had some pre-release criticisms for movies like “Cats” and the recent “Snow White” remake, and we’ve certainly had some negative thoughts the minute we saw the early trailers for “A Minecraft Movie.” Mainly, because of the CGI effects of the block creatures and the decision to make it live action. I think it would have been better suited as animated, based on how “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” was able to brighten our day with colors and flexibility.
As I was watching “A Minecraft Movie,” I was not without my reservations for the reasons I’ve mentioned above, but I was also not without the kid inside of me. I’ve never played the video game before nor do I know the rules about it, but I was looking at it through a goofy perspective, especially since Jared Hess directs it and since Jason Momoa and Jack Black are the leads who either throw the special effects around or allow the special effects to throw them around.
Black (who worked with Hess before on “Nacho Libre”) plays Steve, a miner, who finds himself in the world of Minecraft. Actually, this cubic place is called the Overworld, where you can create anything you set your mind to. You just need to last 20 minutes of darkness or the piglins, Skeltons, and zombies will get you. These piglins are pig creatures who turn into pork chops when you kill them, these Skeltons ride on giant spiders, and these zombies look like Funko Pop Hulks without the beady eyes, of course.
He needs to protect the Overworld from them, so his only hope is a team of misfits. There’s former video game champ, Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison” (Momoa), who loses his mojo and is in financial trouble; the real estate agent Dawn (Danielle Brooks), whose side job is driving the “Zoo on Wheels” car with a llama in the backseat; and the sister and brother Natalie (Emma Myers) and Henry (Sebastian Hansen), who both lost their mother. The sister acts like a dotty mother who suggests her brother gives out a breakfast pizza out of tater tots for his first day, while he’s a brainiac whose invention gets tampered by bullies.
Take Black’s last two video game movies: “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and “Borderlands,” and place “A Minecraft Movie” in the center with “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” being the best and “Borderlands” as the worst. Let’s think about our reactions towards this new movie. Why would we praise a movie that chooses to be live-action with wall-to-wall CGI effects? If you’re reading this review, and I suggest you read a lot of my reviews, then you’ll understand why.
I think the sister-brother story gets typical, but a lot of the other elements do their best to overshadow that. Momoa acts like a cowardly goofball, who thinks he’s tough, and yet somehow likably funny, and he does share some chemistry with Black. At this very moment, I like to think of their antics in the tradition of how Mickey Rooney and Buddy Hackett were flying that plane in “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.”
Considering the fact that I panned the Seven Dwarfs motion capture decision in “Snow White” and hated the robots in “The Electric State,” it’s amazing that I’m enjoying something that allows the CGI effects to put the movie on autopilot. Maybe they’re not as creepy or annoying as some of the recent effects I’ve seen in those bombs. Or maybe I must be having a silly day, as Roger Ebert once suggested in his “Home Alone 3” review. But my guess is that I was a kid too, and I heard a lot of laugher in the theater, so I would say “A Minecraft Movie” is a flawed, but harmless and goofy fun movie. I guess that makes me a block head.
