Jack Black’s madcap jester spirit provides A Minecraft Movie with a much needed shot of adrenaline to prevent it from falling into the doldrums where other video game adaptations fester.
If there was any actor who could be compared to a Mentos in a Coke bottle, it would be Jack Black. Logically speaking A Minecraft Movie is an adaptation of the immensely popular online video game, yet this is a film that belongs to Jack Black through-and-through and (depending on your opinion on the portly entertainer) is worth the price of admission.
Reuniting with his Nacho Libre director Jarod Hess, a scruffy-bearded Black stars in A Minecraft Movie as Steve, a driftless office worker whose longing for adventure leads to the discovery of a portal that transports him to a cube-shaped world where a playful imagination is the key to survival.
Years later a ragtag group (Jason Momoa, Emma Myers, Sebastian Hansen, Danielle Brools) from the dull town of Chuglass, Idaho, find their own way into this odd universe where Steve is now in a war against an invading pig-sorceress seeking world domination.
Director Jared Hess – who is known for his quirky comedies Napoleon Dynamite and Gentleman Broncos – enters new territory with A Minecraft Movie and for the most part can handle the large scale worldbuilding of the Minecraft IP by embracing a “go big or go home” approach. Story-wise there is nothing new here that hasn’t been done already in the likes of Jumanji and The Lego Movie with talk of “being who you are meant to be” and “your imagination is your superpower!”
There is no meat and potatoes found in A Minecraft Movie; this is pure-driven cotton candy. Speaking of which, there any doubt that Jason Momoa was snorting the stuff during this production. In his role of a once famous arcade-game champion stuck in the ‘80s, Momoa is all hyper-energy machismo yet without the “skadoosh” charms that Black has in spades. To call Momoa’s performance as distracting is an understatement.
Yet them’s are the breaks when watching a film like A Minecraft Movie: a big, bright blockbuster that walks a fine line between bonkers and brainless yet is never boring.
