By Kai Curry
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
Fasten your seatbelts, roundlings, it’s time for a trip to an alternate world, a square world. It’s time for a trip to the world of Minecraft. Starring Jason Momoa and Jack Black, the first live-action version of this best-selling digital game champions the freedom to be creative.
I would call it a STEAM version of creative; science, tech, engineering, art, whatever your jam is, it’s the moral of this story that everyone should be allowed to explore without stigma. “A Minecraft Movie” is based on the game, which allows players to build basically anything they can think of within the game’s building parameters. In fact, we get a tutorial from the movie. Just as in the game itself, the humans in the movie can build and explore—and try to survive the night, which is when the bad things happen and creepy square-shaped baddies come after you. The bigger story starts with Steve (Black), who enters the Overworld (the happy part of the Minecraft universe) and pretty much decides to stay there. He befriends a wolf (Denis), and life is good up until he gets imprisoned by Malgosha, a bent over witch who is against “art and leisure” and wants to turn all of the Minecraft ‘verse into a dark purple Nether, or Underworld.
Are you keeping up so far, roundling? It’s confusing to grownups. I didn’t know much about the game’s world myself except through occasionally watching the influencer PewDiePie play on YouTube. I knew everything was square and you could spend your time aimlessly corralling chickens and that players get really excited over certain in-game mining materials. Luckily, the movie helps the audience along; it has to because a new group of humans arrives in the Overworld and needs an explanation, too. How did they get there? Well, an ex-video-game champion, Garrett “the Garbage Man” (Momoa) gains the “Orb of Dominance” by chance from a storage unit auction, and then Henry (Sebastian Eugene Hansen), a whiz kid who just moved into town, gets pulled into the Overworld by the Orb, and Henry’s sister, Natalie (Emma Myers), has to jump in as well in order to save her brother. Oh yeah, and then there’s Natalie and Henry’s realtor, Dawn (Danielle Brooks), who just happens to be hanging around and is a nice person so she goes, too, kind of like a chaperone. Once they meet, Garrett and Steve become instant rivals, with Steve being more of a hero and Garrett being more of a wimp (but with a lot of flair). Henry, who has been persecuted for being smart in the real world, finds a kind of paradise here, where he can invent and create (apart from being chased by Malgosha’s piglins).
Steve (Jack Black) and Garrett (Jason Momoa) comparing biceps; with Dawn (Danielle Brooks). Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
What was memorable? The Minecraft world itself as visualized in the movie is beautiful. The towering pyramid-like mountains resemble the striking green pali ridges of Hawaii. The banter between Garrett and Steve is entertaining, if silly and a bit suspect at times (I don’t know if I can go so far as to call it homoeroticism, yet there’s definitely a bromance blossoming). Momoa’s Garrett is funny as the washed up former video game hero, who lives in his mind in his glory days and wants to relive them, to no avail. Black is perfect as Steve, the original avatar or “skin” of the game that was created by Markus Persson in 2011. Since the game’s launch, they have added more “skins” (or player appearances), and have included female “skins,” but Steve in the blue shirt is the iconic original and apparently, Black “earned” the right to play Steve by being the most enthusiastic in the cast about the game itself, logging over 100 hours. The sarcasm from Natalie seems forced, and while it’s definitely possible to feel sympathetic towards Henry, the trope of the nerd getting picked on was a bit tired, nor did I believe everyone at school was going to love him once he learned how to get his jet pack working. It is pretty real, though, when one of his dense classmates says to him, “My dad says math is a fraud,” or something to that effect.
The Minecraft game is designed for ages 10 and up. The movie is probably best for about 10 years old through high school. It’s a pretty fast sit and visually enjoyable. The acting is perfectly acceptable—they are all clearly having a good time. Black is his usual enthusiastic self and Momoa shares his love for metal music. There is the quirky addition of Jennifer Coolidge as the vice principal of Henry and Natalie’s school, though tbh her presence is 100% superfluous. For sure, the kids in the cinema when I was there had an absolute blast, and seemed to know every line and everything that was going to happen—without having seen it before—which suggests that the movie is true to the game. As I understand it, it’s called “A” Minecraft Movie, not “The,” because it’s only “a” version, one version of an infinite number of stories that could be had in the Minecraft universe, just like everyone that plays is meant to have their own version, too.
Steve’s love for his dog, Denis, is touching. The square pink sheep and the square cud-chomping llama are funny. It’s hilarious that a giant scary piglin has a pleasant, faintly accented voice. Malgosha’s origin story is just sad and never resolved (she just stays evil). It is funny that buff Garrett is the coward and Steve is brave. The emphasis on the importance of creativity is great, and there is a very effective scene when Garrett redeems himself by being vulnerable about how much his life sucks. The movie did make me more curious to play the game. In the end, the roundlings can stay or leave. Natalie turns to Steve and asks him, why doesn’t he take his magic back to the real world? Indeed, we could all use some magic in the real world about now.
Kai can be reached at newstips@nwasianweekly.com.