A Minecraft Movie made its debut Friday, April 4 with a massive opening, becoming the highest grossing opening weekend of the year generating $163 million. But a question still remains: does it live up to its profit margins or is it just more blockbuster slop?
The movie follows our main character Henry and his sister Natalie. The pair meet their new friends Garret “the garbage man” Garrison, a 1980’s video gaming champion, and Dawn the realtor.
The group stumbles upon the orb of dominance and the earth crystal then travel through a portal to the “overworld.”
In the overworld they are immediately attacked by “mobs” and the earth crystal is broken, stranding them in the overworld and surrounded. Luckily they are saved in the nick of time by Steve, the only other human and an expert on the overworld. Steve offers to help them on their quest to find a new earth crystal, but in order to do that, they must also defeat the evil pigman queen Malgosha.
When it comes to visuals the movie is stunning, blending great cgi with well made practical effects that captures the differences of the overworld and the regular world very well. The sets are all well crafted giving fans a familiar feel to the game while still being unique.
The humor is mostly well thought out referencing many aspects of the games, lore, and online community, however it is not perfect. Some jokes fall flat and use cheap comedy techniques and tropes such as over the top screaming and placing Garrison in the foil role, for example.
As a frequent movie goer I regularly fall in love with characters and their stories. A Minecraft Movie failed to make me feel much at all towards the characters and was in my opinion the weakest aspect of the movie. Characters like Henry and Garret have some character development but are considerably rushed making their endings feel cheap and unearned while Dawn and Natalie have no development at all and feel like two place holders despite being main characters of the movie. Steve has no development either, giving the feeling that his entire story has already taken place before the opening credits. He functions more as a plot device to tell jokes and direct the characters rather than a character himself.
A Minecraft movie never seriously takes a crack at being a good movie, but that might work in its favor. Despite being what most would consider a bad film, it’s hard to say that it isn’t a good time. The franchise was never very story driven anyway being a sandbox game and the movie actually captures that feel very well. While some jokes don’t land the jokes that do, land very well making it a pretty funny movie and one that long time fans of the franchise will appreciate. While I wouldn’t say they struck diamond (or gold for that matter) I would say they struck iron, which minecraft players will know, you can never have too much iron.
Chayce LeShawn Papp is a first-year English major from Oklahoma City.
