(PG) ★★★★
Director: Jared Hess.
Cast: Jack Black, Jason Momoa, Emma Myers, Danielle Brooks, Sebastian Hansen, Jennifer Coolidge, Rachel House.
There are two brilliant backroom decisions that help make A Minecraft Movie the hilariously idiosyncratic joy that it is; the hirings of Jared Hess and Jack Black.
Hess was the fourth director attached to his film, which spent about a decade in development hell. But it's his distinctive sense of humour that elevates this above the mindless CG mess is could've and probably should've been. While his post-Napoleon Dynamite films have been little-seen, that droll and often abstract comedy line through his career is incredibly welcome here.
And Jack Black was certainly not the first choice to star in this video game adaptation as it bounced between writers and directors - he was initially merely a voice cameo as an animated pig. But with Jack Black at his most Jack Blackest, A Minecraft Movie becomes a very particular type of comedy. Be warned: if you have no time for Jack Black, then give this a wide berth. But if you can tolerate him and even enjoy his antics, then grab the kids and great ready for the most fun family film of the year.
Black stars as Steve, a regular dude who accidentally stumbles into the Overworld (ie. the regular Minecraft world) and makes it his home until he is captured by Malgosha (voiced by House), the evil piggish queen of the hellish Nether. Into the middle of this feud stumbles siblings Natalie (Myers) and Henry (Hansen), washed-up '80s gaming legend Garrett "The Garbage Man" Garrison (Momoa), and real estate agent/petting zoo owner Dawn (Brooks).
The plot itself is nothing special - it's essentially a MacGuffin quest. But given that Minecraft is essentially a plot-less video game, the film does a good job of finding a story to cut through yet also include the lore of this immensely popular sandpit game, ensuring the diehards will get their in-jokes and Easter eggs, and the noobs will get something they can enjoy even if they've never played the game before.
In between the insane CG action sequences (and everything in this is basically insane CG), there are some great character beats, particularly for Momoa's '80s-loving douchebag, and the siblings of Natalie and Henry. It's more than enough to flesh-out their characters and make us care, which is more than a lot of other big-budget blockbusters can manage these days. The film also does a good job of making it look like these actual humans are existing in and interacting with a cubic digital world, which is no mean feat.
But A Minecraft Movie really thrives as an ode to creativity, self-belief, and having a bonkers sense of humour. Black busts out random songs, there is an absurd love-story sideline about a vice-principal and a Minecraft villager, and a kid builds a jetpack that destroys a town icon (which happens to be a potato). There is plenty of classic Hess/Black moments wrapped together, playing out against the backdrop of either the lame town of Chuglass or the eye-melting world of Minecraft, and 90 per cent of them work.
Video game movies used to be a cursed proposition, but A Minecraft Movie shows what can be done if you lean into the game's aesthetic, dig out what makes it so popular (fun + creativity), and inject the whole thing with a self-aware sense of humour that's not a million miles away from The Lego Movie. In mining for laughs, it crafts a gem of a movie.