If you’re not familiar with Minecraft as a game then this film, notionally a big screen version of same, won’t necessarily solve that. Minecraft, even more than most computer games, is what you make of it, an experience generated by the player. So in a way, the idea of making a film set in the Minecraft world is counterintuitive, because it can never replicate what is good about Minecraft, it can only tell you what is good about Minecraft. In addition to that, this comedy-fantasy takes aspects of the Minecraft world and uses them as building blocks in a rollicking adventure suitable for almost all ages, giving Jack Black and Jason Momoa carte blanche to wild out and be deeply silly. Your affection for and/or tolerance of this latter prospect will dictate to a large extent your enjoyment of this film.
Black plays Steve, a crafter who in the game was the original default player, although that doesn’t especially matter here. Momoa is Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison, a washed-up video game champ with an aesthetic stuck permanently and delightfully in the 1980s: pink leather fringed jacket and luscious locks flowing down past his prodigious shoulders like the first snowmelt off a mountain range. As this is kinda-sorta an ensemble film, we also have Henry (Sebastian Hansen), Natalie (Emma Myers) and Dawn (Danielle Brooks) rounding out the good guys squad. It’s not the fault of any of the three latter actors, but it’s hard for them to make an impression alongside Black and Momoa going full-throttle – and it would become an exhausting experience if they tried. That does mean their storylines feel like downtime, a chance to relax and catch your breath, rather than providing the emotional core that the writers presumably intended.
Used more sparingly, but also firing on all cylinders is a hilarious – and when is she not? – Jennifer Coolidge, whose teacher character is exactly the kind of breathy over-sharer that Coolidge has made her speciality. She immediately tells Henry, a child in her care, that she stuck it out in a dead marriage for 20 years for the sake of “the dogs”. Coolidge is, quite simply, a genius at this, and can do this stuff in her sleep, without the slightest suggestion of effort.
Black is a very different type of performer; you can see effort in every swivel-eyed tic and line delivery, but that’s the whole point: it’s funny (mostly) to see someone commit that wholeheartedly to the bit. It’s a shame the film as a whole doesn’t work quite as well as its standout performances, with a tendency to ping pong along from scrape to scrape with little sense that it would matter much if you rearranged the various monster attacks or obstacles to be overcome in a different order. A little more craft on the storytelling side could have elevated this to something special a la Dungeons and Dragons from 2023, but it’s an enjoyable if hectic experience nonetheless.
