Austin is a junior studying History. He wants to be a high school history teacher.
McKenna Howenstine. Edited by Isaac Fick|Marlin Chronicle
Austin was instructed to write this review in exactly 640 words (equivalent to a full hot bar in Minecraft) with references throughout. Try to spot them all!
“A Minecraft Movie” was one of the most anticipated movies in recent memory. As someone who grew up playing Minecraft and getting blown up by creepers with my little sister on my old XBOX 360, the game is something I look back on fondly. However, when I first saw the trailer for this movie I had my doubts. I was worried that this would be another cash grab movie banking on an already popular IP that would be more of a product than a piece of art that modern Hollywood has become infamous for. Unfortunately, this ended up being true. Fortunately, it didn’t end up being the whole truth.
Aww man, I felt like a husk of my former self after I drowned in the exposition dump at the beginning of the movie where Jack Black’s character, Steve, spent what felt like 20 minutes explaining what Minecraft was. While I wish they could say they got all of the world building out of the way in the beginning, Jack Black just saying things that were happening on screen was a consistent presence throughout the movie. When this happened it completely took me out of the movie, every reference seemed like it was forced into the movie like how I somehow have to fit the words Waxed Lightly Weathered Cut Copper Stairs into this review. The movie had an extremely basic plot, little to no character arcs and no real theme. However, despite all of the things wrong with the movie, I still enjoyed the 101 minutes that I spent watching it.
Mars Johnson|Marlin Chronicle
In my opinion, the best things about the movie were the star actors, particularly Jason Momoa. While these performances certainly won’t win them any Oscars, I enjoyed watching them. Not their characters mind you, I didn’t care about Steve or the Garbage Man as characters in and of themselves. While none of the other actors did a bad job playing their characters, the characters overall were pretty weak throughout the movie and they just didn’t overcome that fact. To be honest, I don’t even remember any of the other characters’ names.
The soundtrack was also a lot better than I was expecting. The writers of the song “Steve’s Lava Chicken” certainly did not try to swim in lava when making it, and I enjoyed the reference to the original soundtrack at the beginning of opening credits. Not all the songs were hits, however, as I didn’t enjoy the “Ode to Dennis.” The song stopped the flow of the movie completely when it was supposed to be ending, Dennis was just not an important character that I was attached to enough, and it really just wasn’t a good song. In a different cut of the movie I would recommend just cutting it, especially since Steve just went with him right after, making the goodbye meaningless.
It was clear the movie was made just so that people would be inspired to play the game again, and jumping from scene to scene with no flow to a larger plot didn’t stop that from happening. There were some scenes that people will definitely talk about throughout the next month or so, including the scene where the pink sheep gets ripped apart by zombies and zombie villagers during the first night. The chicken jockey scene with the baby zombie has already become infamous, and the scene where the villain is still trying to stab Steve while slowly turning into a zombified piglin has already come up on my for you page several times.
Overall I would say that “A Minecraft Movie” is something that I enjoyed watching, but I feel no real need to watch it again at any point. The movie will likely be forgotten in a few months after the hype dies down, but it is worth the time to watch it.
By Austin Utter
