Starring Jack Black, Jason Momoa, Danielle Brooks, Emma Myers, Sebastian Hansen, Rachel House and Jennifer Coolidge

Directed by Jaed Hess

Warner Bros., out now

In the 1980s, Steve (Jack Black) breaks into a mine to live his childhood dream. He finds the Orb of Dominance and the Earth Crystal, combines them and vanishes into the Overworld. He befriends Dennis, a wolf, builds a paradise and then inadvertently opens a portal to the Nether, attracted the attention of Malgosha (Rachel House), leader of the Piglins, a race of greedy miners. They capture Steve and he sends Dennis back to Earth to hide the Crystal and Orb. In his old house. Until, years later, Natalie (Emma Myers) and Henry (Sebastien Hansen) move to town and Garrett ‘The Garbage Man’ Garrison (Jason Momoa), a fading pro game player, buys the contents of Steve’s old house…

I have no previous knowledge of Minecraft beyond its existence and the fact it’s a very cool idea so I went into this very much with a mind to see if it works as a movie first, then an adaptation. The good news is, mostly, it does.

Jaed Hess, best known for Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre, has the exact right sense of humour to make this work and some of the jokes land beautifully, Black’s hyper-focused, Dionysian Steve is no dramatic stretch for him whatsoever but he’s as committed to the bit as always and is tremendous fun to watch. He also gets to yell ‘GAR GAR NO! THAT BABY HAS THE SOUL OF A DEMON!’ and other lines that ridiculous with absolute sincerity and total context. He looks like he’s having fun, and he’s enormous fun to watch.

Oddly, so is Momoa, who is playing massively against type here. Garrett’s hyper macho, deadly seriousness is often very funny but also has some lightly sketched in notes about the difference between a gamer and a competitive gamer. Garrett is living in his past. Steve is living in an idealised version not just of the world but of creativity and seeing Garrett learn to literally play well with others is really sweet.

But outside these two, the rest of the cast are hurt by the truncated running time. Hansen is brilliant as Henry, the kid at the centre of the movie but his entire arc is ‘Slightly sad, awkward, grows into himself.’ That’s massive and complex compared to the thankless work Danielle Brooks and Myers are asked to do. Brooks, who owned the screen in Peacemaker gets to play a would-be petting zoo owner whose entire character is ‘likes animals.’ Myers, who again, owns every scene she’s in in Wednesday, gets ‘concerned older sister with some anger issues’. There’s a barely present plot about the kids processing the loss of their mother. There’s a barely sketched in plot about them moving to a new town. Jennifer Coolidge gets more screen time in a, to be fair very funny, side plot about the local high school principal’s whirlwind romance with a villager in the real world. Coolidge (and a surprise voice cameo for the villager) is always great but the fact she gets more to do than either female lead is very weird. House at least gets to have fun verbally sparring with Black and gets some really good lines. She’s the lucky one but there shouldn’t have to be a lucky one. It’s not even that these are two talented actresses more than capable of handling big roles. It’s that it’s 2025, and a major movie has female leads who are essentially set dressing. Yet again.

If you can deal with this depressingly familiar situation and the breakneck pace, there’s a ton to enjoy here. The cast are all great regardless of how little they may have to do and the sense of humour is eccentric, obtuse and often very funny. Plus the movie is honestly beautiful. The cheerful, lumpy aesthetic of the game has translated very well and the closing fight is a neatly handled combination of massive scale, personal stakes and huge, weird cool structures.

Verdict: A Minecraft Movie is fun, but it could have been so much more. It pays lip service to the difficulties of creativity and the inclusive, wonderful nature of games in general and Minecraft in particular. But in the end it never quite learns the lessons Garrett and Steve do. A good start, but it could, and should, have been so much better. 7/10

Alasdair Stuart