“A Minecraft Movie” will be downloading onto theaters starting April 4, 2025, and I have to admit that I find its execution to be very perplexing. Based on what I’ve seen in the teaser and recently released trailer for the movie, this is going to be a live action movie enmeshed inside an environment which has been nearly entirely rendered with CGI: The world, the animals, and the Minecraft characters (think Villagers) will all be computer animated. This begs the question of why producers of the film chose to make this live action at all? Why not make it 100% animation, a la the recent “Mario Movie?”
The plot appears to follow the same story beats of “Jumanji,” or “Mario Movie.” Four people are somehow trapped inside the world of Minecraft and, along the way, they run into a fifth character named Steve who was similarly brought here unexpectedly. Steve is played by Jack Black. In the trailer, it is Jack Black as Steve who is explaining many of the rules of this world: anything you can imagine you can create as long as it is in blocks.
Taking a step back, one has to wonder why they chose to make this movie at all. While Minecraft has remained popular, it is not popular to a level where it generates its own buzz. Instead, it has become more of a cultural staple, like Monopoly, Barbie or the hoola hoop. People have been playing it for easily two decades, and they might be playing it beyond my own life time. But, we are really past the optimal time to turn it into a movie.
Second, a movie based in Minecraft feels somewhat counter intuitive because the nature of Minecraft, and what has made it so popular, is its open world. The story is the experience which the player has as they are playing the game and making different choices. Yes, you can “finish” the game, but that isn’t required. And, I know that there is a story mode for Minecraft, and perhaps there would be a way of portraying this with an animation with a plot, but it would need to be handled well.
What I can’t wrap my mind around is how the movie will explain the existence of Minecraft of a world. If anything, it should be a game, much like Jumanji was in its movie, or the action should take place inside a computer world, much like the events of the Tron movies. This would be the best context as to why the rules work the way that they do in the Minecraft world.
Alas, the explanation in the trailer seems to indicate that Steve’s interest in mining as a young boy eventually lead to the discovery of Minecraft via a portal. So, it sounds like this will be a akin to multi-dimensional travel, like Narnia in the “Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe.”
The trailer doesn’t go far to explain the main characters other than to show a few brief scenes of them interacting and shouting one-liners. All of Jack Black’s lines in the trailer appear to be delivered in the same, astonished tone using a slow, gravelly voice. I can only hope that this is not the same throughout the entire movie.
Will I see the movie? I believe so, only because Minecraft is so big that a movie based on it is a cultural milestone. But, there has to be more to it than just a little relevance: it needs stand on its own as a movie, respect the source material, and it needs to be good. And, I can’t help but feel a little concerned that it will fall short.
