A Minecraft Movie

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Victoria's Statewide Mornings program on April 17, 2025.

(PG) ★★★★

Director: Jared Hess.

Cast: Jack Black, Jason Momoa, Emma Myers, Danielle Brooks, Sebastian Hansen, Jennifer Coolidge, Rachel House.

Everyone was keen for a game of "Duck or Chicken?".

 

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.

REWIND REVIEW: Ghostbusters (1984)

(PG) ★★★★★

Director: Ivan Reitman.

Cast: Bill Murray, Sigourney Weaver, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, Walter Atherton.

The garbagemen had arrived, and they were very unhappy with the mess.

Sci-fi cinema has been a thing for as long as cinema has been a things. Since Georges Méliès' 1902 short Trip To The Moon (and actually even before then), film-makers have been fascinated by showing us the impossible and improbable place where science meets fiction.

2001: A Space Odyssey brought about a new dawn of sci-fi in 1968, but it was arguably Star Wars that really sparked a revolution. Even though 2001's special effects hold up better, Star Wars created a new level of FX artistry while simultaneously cementing the blockbuster era that began just two years earlier with Jaws. Big, incredible effects, matched with symphonic sci-fi storytelling - these are the ingredients that audiences look to today when they hit the cinemas in droves. It's rarely the auteur-driven drama or star vehicle, as it was when The Godfather or Rocky or The Graduate dominated the box office.

Between 1977 and 1984, the three original Star Wars films were the biggest box office hits of their respective years, as were the Bond-goes-sci-fi-actioner Moonraker, and Steven Spielberg's boy-meets-alien charmer E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. The only non-sci-fi chart-toppers in that time were Grease and Raiders Of The Lost Ark. This pent-up passion for sci-fi meant it was only a matter of time before someone decided to throw a big FX budget at a comedy.

Enter Ghostbusters. Based on an idea by fourth-generation paranormal enthusiast Dan Aykroyd, it was knocked into shape by director Ivan Reitman and writer/actor Harold Ramis. It was Reitman and Ramis who reined in Aykroyd's initially intergalactic/futuristic idea which "would have cost something like $200 million to make", Reitman told Premiere magazine in 2014 - those kinds of budgets wouldn't set sail until James Cameron got on board the Titanic in 1997.

In fact, Aykroyd's ability to throw out a lot of his early "darker", "scarier", "intergalactic" ideas and take on Reitman and Ramis' concepts not only made the film what it is, but says a lot about Aykroyd's creative skills as a collaborator. Reitman even praised Aykroyd's openness - lesser writers would've been less receptive, and Ghostbusters would never have been made, let alone become a classic.

Reitman and Ramis gave the film its "ghost janitors in New York" feel, but fate gave them their cast. Aykroyd had written the script with two former Saturday Night Live co-stars in mind, but Beverly Hills Cop took Eddie Murphy out of the equation and a mix of heroin and cocaine did the same for John Belushi. Instead Ramis and another ex-SNL-er Bill Murray became the stars, with Ernie Hudson taking on Murphy's significantly pared-down role.

The premise is king in Ghostbusters - it's great trick is making its paranormal subject matter normal. It's heroes are work-a-day service providers, like ratcatchers and garbagemen - they wear overalls, inhabit a fire station and drive an ambulance/hearse. It somehow helps make the whole unbelievable scenario believable.

But it's the cast that makes it work, particularly Murray. While his sleaziness has aged poorly (though it's interesting to note how his character's attitude to Sigourney Weaver's Dana changes and becomes caring when she becomes possessed, arguably showing his true colours), his motormouth improvisations are still on the money. His big personality elevates the Ghostbusting team, and thus the movie, especially alongside the goofy charm of Aykroyd's enthusiastic Ray Zantz and Ramis' nerdish Egon Spengler, who are both incredibly subdued. Hudson is unfortunately saddled with a role so underwritten, you could almost cut him from the film without it hurting the finished product - it's only that a gets off a couple of good one-liners and brings a biblical perspective that he has an impact.

Outside of Murray, the secret casting weapons are Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis. The pair play their duel roles in a brilliantly complimentary way that isn't spoken about enough. Weaver's Dana is wary, aloof and sharp - she's a grounding force in the movie - while Moranis' Louis is an annoying dweeb who's there for comic relief. Yet when both become possessed, they each take on animal qualities in their own way that work together perfectly. Dana is like a dog in heat, while Louis is a monkey, sniffing and testing things to see what they are. Each interpretation of possession works, and the film is all the better for it.

More than 40 years on from becoming the first big-budget comedy, Ghostbusters continues to sparkle because it remains funny and its premise still works. There are so many great lines - Murray's delivery of "Yes, it's true. This man has no dick" is one of the greatest pieces of comedy of the 20th century - and its laugh ratio is high, while many of its sci-fi FX hold up surprisingly well today. The stop-motion hellhounds of Zuul aren't great, but there is a composite shot with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man lurching down a New York street that is immaculate to this day.

Seriously, this shot is great.

FX-driven comedy begins here and is yet to be surpassed. The following year's Back To The Future is another sci-fi laugher that probably owes a debt to Ghostbusters, but it didn't cost as much. Back To The Future 2 pushed that envelope a few years later, but arguably it would take 13 years and Men In Black to even come close to this level of big-budget blending between comedy and science-fiction.

Snow White (2025)

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Victoria's Statewide Mornings program on April 3, 2025.

(PG) ★★★½

Director: Marc Webb.

Cast: Rachel Zegler, Gal Gadot, Andrew Burnap, Ansu Kabia, Patrick Page, Jeremy Swift, Tituss Burgess, Andrew Barth Feldman, Martin Klebba, Omari Bernard, Jason Kravits, Dominic Owen, George Salazar, Andy Grotelueschen.

"'Seven dwarfs', hey? And where did that nickname come from?"

I'm going to say this slowly and clearly for the idiots up the back: it's okay to remake films. It's also okay to change things in a remake. It's even okay, 99 times out of 100, to recast roles in different races or genders. 

That's because all that matters is whether the movie is any good or not. And in the case of Disney's live action remake of Snow White... guess what? It's actually good. 

And you wanna know another thing? The OG 1937 animated classic is, yes, a masterpiece of animation, but it's also a highly flawed and antiquated piece of storytelling. And this remake, which admittedly has its own problems, actually improves on some of the issues in the original, mostly by making its main characters actual characters, with depth and emotion and all the things that make them engaging and interesting.

When all is said and done, this version of Snow White achieves what it sets out to achieve. It's true to the spirit, tone and look of the original, and is exactly as "Disney" as it could and should be. Walt himself wouldn't be rolling in his grave - he'd be lining up for a ticket, and beaming at the smiling faces of the young children who are going to delight in this film's magic.

The film is the story of Snow White (Zegler), the princess born into a loving royal family, but orphaned and left in the "care" of a jealous stepmother (Gadot), whose reign as the new Queen brings sadness and poverty to the land. Not content to treat Snow White as a servant, the Queen decides things would be better if Snow White was killed, and has her taken into the woods so the deed can be done. 

Whatever "Disney" is, this is Disney. It positively swims in its warm and syrupy Disney-ness. It's twee and cute and charming and bashful and dopey and all the other dwarves. Cute animals abound amid the uplifting melodies that help the medicine go down. There's a hissable villain with a classic Disney villain song, undone not through violence but their own hubris. Webb nails the brief, capturing the summery magic hour look of the dwarfs world as beautifully as he does the Queen's dark transformation.

Where this version surpasses the original is in its characterisations and relationships. The 1937 original is a technical triumph and a stunning display of animation, but Snow White and her charming prince are plot devices, not people. The remake gives them depth and personality, though it doesn't go as far as giving Snow White flaws - she remains an untouchable, immaculate Disney princess.

The performances are also wonderfully Disney-ish. Zegler is perfect as the optimistic and virtuous princess, while Gadot is great as the evil Queen. Her presence is suitably chilling and vainglorious, and Gadot sinks her teeth into her big musical number with aplomb.

Sadly it's not perfect, and the biggest problem is its littlest characters. Disney was forced into a "damned if we do, damned if we don't" situation with the dwarfs - there was no right answer in the choice between CG and real-life dwarfs - but they stand-out so much that you have to make a conscious decision to ignore how they look in order to enjoy the movie. The dwarfs appear to do their mining in Uncanny Valley, and look unnerving as a result. Also, Dopey appears to have been modelled on Mad magazine's Alfred E Neuman for some reason. And, much like in the original, some of the dwarf sequences feel like padding.

The film also falls a little short in its attempt to give the film a strong thematic base. Is this a secret political parable? It tells of kindness being vanquished from the land by vanity and cruelty and the hoarding of wealth, and of generosity and the sharing of wealth being seen as a weakness, while the poor are left to scrabble for potatoes and live in the forest, It would be great if this hit a little harder, but  we never get a real sense of life in the kingdom under the evil Queen, something also lacking from the 1937 version. 

It could be funnier, it could be less kidsy, and its dwarfs could be less weird-looking, but this is Disney to its core. Relax into the Disney-ness and go with the hi-ho flow.