A MINECRAFT MOVIE (2025)

Genre: Adventure/Family
Director: Jared Hess
Cast: Jason Momoa, Jack Black, Emma Myers, Danielle Brooks, Sebastian Hansen, Jennifer Coolidge
Runtime: 1 hr 41 mins
Rating: PG (Some Violence)
Released By: Warner Bros
Official Website:

Opening Day: 3 April 2025

Synopsis: Welcome to the world of Minecraft, where creativity doesn’t just help you craft, it’s essential to one’s survival! Four misfits—Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison (Momoa), Henry (Hansen), Natalie (Myers) and Dawn (Brooks)—find themselves struggling with ordinary problems when they are suddenly pulled through a mysterious portal into the Overworld: a bizarre, cubic wonderland that thrives on imagination. To get back home, they’ll have to master this world (and protect it from evil things like Piglins and Zombies, too) while embarking on a magical quest with an unexpected, expert crafter, Steve (Black). Together, their adventure will challenge all five to be bold and to reconnect with the qualities that make each of them uniquely creative…the very skills they need to thrive back in the real world. 

Movie Review:

We’ve always believed that Jack Black makes every movie better than it would have been without his presence, and nowhere is that truer than in ‘A Minecraft Movie’. He is the very life, zest and spirit of this enterprise, which we can attest, can be as enjoyable for someone who is new to the cultural phenomenon that has captivated over 300 million players (that’s the number of copies of the videogame sold) since 2011.

Black is also – for the uninitiated like us – the guide to the titular blocky world that offers its players limitless resources to discover and create in the Overworld. Everything is blockish, from the snow-capped mountains, to the bumblebees, to the pink sheep, to the shrubs and trees, to a wolf whom Black’s character adopts as his pet dog, to baby Frankenstein zombies, and to the hog-like denizens of the underworld known as the Nether.

After being denied as an 11-year-old boy the opportunity to work in the mines, Steve grows up to become a sad doorknob salesman in the town of Chuglass in Idaho; that is, until he decides once again to chase his dream, whereupon he stumbles onto a glowing orb that introduces him to the Overworld. As those familiar with the game will tell you, the theme at its core is about the importance of creative freedom; and whilst enjoying boundless amounts of that in the Overworld, Steve is taken prisoner by the pig lord Malgosha (voiced by Rachel House), who is determined to get her hands on the Orb to turn the Overworld into her own dominion of repression.

It should be obvious that the Orb is the MacGuffin of the story, alongside a not quite so imaginatively named box called the Earth Crystal, which when combined, opens up a portal for four mismatched individuals to return to Earth, after accidentally stumbling into the Overworld. Among them are a pair of recently orphaned teenagers Natalie (Emma Myers) and her younger brother Henry (Sebastian Hansen), their animal-loving real estate agent Dawn (Danielle Brooks), and former videogame champion turned washed-out videogame store owner Garrett ‘The Garbage Man’ Garrison (Jason Momoa).

Chemistry might be a science, but onscreen, it is often an art, and the pairing between Black and Momoa is testament to how surprising onscreen chemistry can be. Decked mostly in a pink-fringed jacket with heavy-metal locks, Momoa injects the Gen X boomer stereotype with herculean cartoonishness, and even brings unexpected poignancy when revealing his self-awareness of how much of a failure he has been in life. While initially competitive, Steve and Garrett come to forge a steadfast friendship over their similar circumstances chasing for purpose in life, and Black and Momoa prove not only perfect buddies but also perfect comedic foils for each other.

It is also to their credit that the movie rests almost entirely on their shoulders, especially in the CG-heavy sequences that would otherwise come across utterly derivative. Though now in his mid-50s, Black has never lost the child in him, and even though he reprises the same brash, high-octane persona in many other movies, there is no denying how thoroughly committed and therefore thoroughly enjoyable his irrepressibly unique comic energy is. Momoa is clearly cast against type here, but demonstrates his sharp sensibilities defining his own against Black; in particular, their ‘full man sandwich’ act (which has to be seen to be believed) is absolutely hilarious.

With Black, Momoa and plenty of world-building, it is somewhat inevitable that the rest of the characters as well as the story plays second fiddle. The former is especially true of Dawn, as well as Jennifer Coolidge’s Vice-Principal Marlene, who gets a fish-out-of-water subplot that has a nice payoff at the end but belongs only at the side. The latter also means that despite being credited to five writers, the plotting is hardly inspiring, serving merely to get the characters from Point A to Point B so that we can be wowed by the next CG-heavy sequence.

Although the writing hardly lives up to the creativity espoused in the game, ‘A Minecraft Movie’ gets some surprising creative sparks from its ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ and ‘Nacho Libre’ (which also starred Black) director Jared Hess. Those familiar with Hess will immediately recognise his brand of offbeat, absurdist and irreverent humour, and to his credit, despite taking on an expensive, IP-driven studio property, Hess still brings his distinct personality to the material. Thanks to Hess’ sensibility, this adaptation retains its own edge and flavour, even as it knows that it has to play fan service.

We cannot speak on their behalf, but for those who are new to ‘Minecraft’, ‘A Minecraft Movie’ has a goofy, off-kilter appeal that we found unexpectedly entertaining. We’d say upfront that we are superfans of Black, which is a big part of why we liked the movie; and of course, we dug Momoa’s self-skewering doofus act, which we hitherto never knew the action star had in him. You probably know as well as we do that video games have had a spotty track record from game to screen, so we’d actually count this silly but nonetheless quirky and eccentric crowd-pleasing block-buster as a win for the genre. Like Steve says in the movie – ‘first we mine; and then we craft’ – and thanks to Black, Momoa and Hess, you’ll be delighted by what they have mined from the game and crafted into this adaptation.

Movie Rating:

(Jack Black is the life, zest and spirit of this offbeat, absurdist videogame adaptation with ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ sensibilities, that also surprises with an against-type comic turn from Jason ‘Aquaman’ Momoa)

Review by Gabriel Chong