Mucking with Movies: ‘A Minecraft Movie’

“A Minecraft Movie” has brought an unexpected controversy into the world. America’s youth have been pillaging movie theaters, buying tickets and massive popcorn bags to scatter across the seats and floor. They’re catalyzed by Jack Black’s character Steve, going bonkers when he utters the now immortalized words, “Chicken Jockey.”

It is an objectively terrible thing for the teenagers to do, but then I feel the piece of me that’s just happy to see kids having fun at the theater. Maybe for them, it’s their version of “Rocky Horror Picture Show” or “The Room.” I think whether or not “A Minecraft Movie” has that level of transcendence will have less to do with its quality than if movies have a future in the zeitgeist. If movies are still popular, “A Minecraft Movie” will find a niche and be watched at cult classic film festivals and in the background of frat parties by Generation Alpha for years to come. 

I had a crew of those sitting in the section next to me in the theater, and maybe movies will evolve into something else entirely by the time these kids come of age. They were there with their dads, and the whole collection roared throughout the one-and-one-minute runtime. I couldn’t help myself but to look over to check their reactions during action scenes and comedy bits. The dads were all open to laughter and seemed absorbed when they weren’t busy stopping their boys from spilling their Slurpees. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t alone, that I wasn’t accidentally injecting some horrible, post-modern, ironic enjoyment into the proceedings, and that “A Minecraft Movie” was as fun and as good as I thought it was. 

Casting director Rachel Tenner has an impressive resumè, but getting Jason Momoa and Black together to play off one another is her coup de grâce. The same could be said about director Jared Hess — from “Nacho Libre” and “Napolean Dynamite” fame — for enabling the two to take it as far as they could. To trust them not to go into business for themselves, to serve the film rather than hijacking it because they’re bored. Mammoa is so good at all his roles because he puts his all into them always. He is beyond a movie star stuck in a character actor’s body. He is an erotic novel main character mixed with the same strain of talent that makes actors like his counterpart Black so popular. In “A Minecraft Movie,” he plays washed-up delusional former arcade champion, Garret, in a delicious piece of casting against type. 

Something as simple as a handshake between Mammoa and Black becomes a hoot between the two. When they’re off-screen, the film feels a deep net negative, with not all the other performers able to pull off the needed right temperature. When they share the screen and share dialogue, you can feel their combined magnetism sucking you in through the screen. Black has his historically hilarious mannerisms turned all the way up. The ones that make even throwaway lines like “Chicken Jockey” memorable. Mammoa is using his husky, hunky voice to lean into his character, adding a necessary campy layer. It gives “A Minecraft Movie” a strong undercurrent of self-awareness that keeps it afloat. It knows it’s a kids’ movie, never steering away from the desire to drive happiness into kids’ hearts. But, the humor that’s making the kids laugh is funny enough to cut through our cynicism and make the adults laugh, too. 

Hess is smart to start the flick with a long Black monologue, working the dual purpose of introducing the film’s plot in the simplest manner possible to the kids while giving the adults a familiar voice to laugh along with. The film does have a rapid pace that creates casualties in the editing room, where decisions such as cutting Jennifer Coolidge’s subplot down to an annoying diversion takes away from the film. The whole sidetrack could have been eliminated if not for the Minecraft Villager tagging along with her. Not having one of the most hysterically-designed video game characters wander its way into the real world would have been an unforgivably large mistake, so you have to do something with the opportunity. Hess could have done worse than pair it up with Coolidgem too, but the follow-through is lacking. 

“A Minecraft Movie” gets kids excited to go out to the movie theater, and I had oodles and oodles of fun watching it. That’s enough. 

Critic Score: 7.5/10

Jack Simon is a mogul coach and writer/director who enjoys eating food he can’t afford, traveling to places out of his budget, and creating art about skiing, eating, and traveling while broke. Check out his website jacksimonmakes.com to see his Jack’s Jitney travelogue series. You can email him at jackdocsimon@gmail.com for inquiries of any type.