‘A Minecraft Movie’ is certainly a movie about Minecraft

By Sophia Monastra

I have one game on my computer, and it’s Minecraft. There’s something about it–the sleepy villages, the ruins left by unknown people, the horrifying mobs that crawl out at night, the strange and unusual biomes and the general vastness of the open world that keeps on calling me back. I don’t play as much as I should, but Minecraft has been a way for me to connect with my younger sister, whether we’re watching an SMP on YouTube or playing side by side on different devices.

This isn’t a unique experience: Minecraft is an open-world sandbox game beloved by thousands of players. While there is the overall goal of killing the Ender Dragon, the game allows people to build intricate structures, farm villagers, fight mobs, explore the variety of biomes, program with Redstone and (my favorite) turn the game into a glorified farming simulator. It supports single-player worlds and multiplayer SMPs. There are thousands of ways to play and thousands of stories to tell in the Minecraft universe.

So, how does “A Minecraft Movie” stack up to expectations?

Well, Steve is there. And ever since Steve was a child, he yearned for the mines. Child labor laws kept him away until years later, when he dug straight into the Orb of Dominance (which is a cube) and the Earth Crystal. Combining the two leads him into a new dimension–the Overworld, a land of infinite creativity, cubes (so many cubes), an adorable wolf he befriends and names Dennis and horrifying monsters that come out at night. 

He later finds the Nether and gets kidnapped by creativity-hating Piglin sorceress Malgosha, who wants to conquer the Overworld. To stop her, Steve sends Dennis with the Orb and Crystal back to Earth to a safe hiding spot.

Clearly, he needed a better hiding spot, because washed-up gamer Garrett, creative inventor Henry, Henry’s older sister Natalie, and real estate agent/traveling zookeeper Dawn find the orb and crystal and end up in the Overworld. Joining Steve, they adventure across the Overworld to stop Malgosha, and meanwhile learn valuable lessons about being themselves and having friends and other stuff.

Oh, and there’s a subplot where a Minecraft villager ends up in the real world and goes on a dinner date with a vice principal with no filter. I wish I were making this up.

There were things about the movie I appreciated. The practical effects were well done. The physical sets and props were beautifully constructed. Blocky lava-roasted Minecraft chicken should not look as appetizing as it did (and according to the BTS lore, it is actual, edible chicken, which is awesome). The soundtrack was great and incorporated classic Minecraft tracks like “Pigstep” and C418.

There were a few legitimately funny jokes about Minecraft mechanics (I, too, have no clue why a water bucket breaks your fall). A couple of small details, such as Steve’s stop-motion-like timelapses and his various statues of mobs, were nice examples of in-game player behavior. Sharp-eyed Minecraft fans might have been able to pick out some Minecraft YouTubers cameoed in a few scenes (Me. I picked out some Minecraft YouTubers cameoed in a few scenes). 

The movie accurately depicted just how terrifying the first night is. Redstone was used prominently and I really appreciated that. I enjoyed seeing the Woodland Mansion’s halls and room full of chests with unreasonably good loot built in a physical space. The movie expanded on the designs and functions of Iron Golems and Endermen in ways that gave a lot more personality to their original designs and concepts. The characters mined (but not a lot). They crafted. They Minecrafted. That was certainly dialogue in the movie. 

But mining and crafting alone does not a great movie make, and this was, unfortunately, not a great movie. 

A few minor grievances added up for me: the frankly unnecessary side plot of the Villager-Principal date night (how I wish I were making that up), an obvious feeling of green screen background, certain choices with the CGI mobs, a couple more curse/near curse words than I expected, constant Minecraft feature namedropping, complete lack of any trace of Ender Dragon (HOW) and at least two groan-worthy innuendos. 

All of this I could have easily ignored, except for one glaring problem–out of five characters, I couldn’t care less about any of them.

How is this possible? It’s quite simple, really–“A Minecraft Movie”’s story consists of three character arcs. First, there’s Steve, the veteran miner and crafter whose desire to keep the Overworld clashes with his desire to keep his wolf Dennis safe. Then there’s Garrett, washed-up lone wolf gamer who needs to get past his pride, open up and make friends. Then there’s bullied inventor Henry, who is struggling with being a creative kid in a mundane world. 

The movie could have focused on any of them as a primary story, but instead tries to split the runtime equally between all three characters and their arcs, and also fit in all the Minecraft worldbuilding lore. Genuine moments of conflict between characters were resolved quickly so everyone could get to the next cool Minecraft location. Actual moments of character development were glossed over for cool fight scenes, Minecraft assets manifested into CGI, Villager dinner date night (I wish I were making this up) and explosions. 

All of this story bloat especially affected the two main female characters, Dawn and Natalie, both of whom could have been interesting but barely got any screen time and had their story hooks glossed over. While everyone got happy endings, I couldn’t feel any triumph because I didn’t know why those were happy endings for them.

Overall? “A Minecraft Movie” is a movie. It’s about Minecraft. It’s colorful, it’s full of fun callbacks to the game and it’s brimming with slapstick. But at least for me, it doesn’t dig into the heart of Minecraft. 

“The Minecraft Movie” is currently playing in theaters. 

Sophia Monastra is a Junior Professional Writing and Information Design major, lover of arts, consumer of comics, avoider of aerobic activity, champion of procrastination, sayer of much, thinker of little, happy ghast enthusiast, defender of the Oxford comma and generally an all-around nerd.

Images courtesy of Warner Bros and Mojang.