Minecraft (2011) is the best-selling video game of all time. It has sold more than Super Mario Bros. (1985) and Sonic the Hedgehog (1991). Recently, Hollywood has adapted the latter games into box office successes. Reportedly, this film was in development before the film Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) was released. That 2020 smash hit reinvigorated the industry and made video game films a potential hot topic again. The billion dollars made by The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) also primed the pump for something like this. The difference between Minecraft and most other side-scrolling games like Super Mario or Sonic is that Minecraft is what's known as a "sandbox game" or a game that has no goal or predetermined ending. A sandbox game allows players to be creative and essentially explore landscapes and build things from their own imagination based on whatever tools the game provides. In Minecraft, the tools provided are mainly blocks or cubes that players use to assemble whatever they like, mostly structures. Some sandbox games do have goals or predetermined endings, but in the case of Minecraft, those goals are survival modes where players have to avoid or not get caught by characters that are considered monsters like zombies or whatever that can end game-play.
Jack Black (The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) stars as Steve, a man who wants to work in the local mines. He wants to be a miner. One day, he does some mining in a nearby cave and discovers the Orb of Dominance, a glowing cube that when it's put inside a box-like structure called the Earth Crystal will open an portal to a place called the Overworld, which is essentially the land or territory of the video game. It's appropriate that Jack Black is the star here because both his hit films The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle feature characters who got sucked or transported into a magical land filled with strange creatures. So, this film is basically a rip-off of those aforementioned films, particularly The Super Mario Bros., but, given the success of the Oscar-winning Wicked (2024), this film is also a kind of homage to The Wizard of Oz (1939), which is also about a character who gets sucked into a magical land and has to find her way home. There has since been tons of children's films that have had the same basic premise. The Chronicles of Narnia (1950), the book and eventual films series, was also about young people getting transported into a magical land.
Jason Momoa (Dune and Aquaman) also stars as Garrett Garrison, a video game champion known as "The Garbage Man." He won his video game championship in 1985, which was his peak, and he hasn't really done anything great since then. He does own a video game store in what's called Chuglass, Idaho. His store looks like it doesn't sell any modern-day video games like the Xbox, which is the platform or console for Minecraft. It looks like Garrett's store only sells vintage video games like Atari or other games made exclusively in the 1980's and not anything past that, which might be why he's struggling financially and he's on the verge of getting evicted. It should also be noted that Warner Bros. is distributing this film and Warner Bros. owns the rights to Atari, which is probably why it's featured here.
When Garrett learns that the Orb of Dominance will take him to Overworld where there are buried treasures, Garrett wants to go and find those treasures, so he can have the money to keep his video game store opened and live a better life. Obviously, the money will help to pay his rent or whatever back fees he owes, but Garrett doesn't seem to have a plan, as to how he's going to keep his business going in terms of increasing sales or marketing better. He seems to want a nest egg, which will allow him to hang out in his store and dawdle or even play heavy metal music.
Sebastian Hansen (Lisey's Story and Just Mercy) co-stars as Henry, a teenage boy who is just starting high school in Chuglass, Idaho. He's new to town. He just moved here with his sister who is his legal guardian. He gets bullied for wanting to be a rocket scientist, but he's confident enough to be proud that he wants to be a rocket scientist. Fellow students even try to sabotage his dream of making a jet-pack. He comes up with a design for one and even builds it, but his bullies tamper with it. He feels his creativity isn't appreciated. It also feels like his scientific mind isn't much appreciated either. If this were The Wizard of Oz, Henry would be the equivalent to Dorothy. Henry doesn't get sucked into Oz. He gets sucked into the Overworld. Once he does, he spends the rest of the time trying to get back home, not to Kansas but instead Idaho.
Emma Myers (Family Switch and Wednesday) also co-stars as Natalie, the older sister to Henry and his legal guardian. She's the one taking care of him. Their parents are apparently not around. They may be deceased, but she gets a job at a potato chip factory in Chuglass, Idaho. She moves there and takes Henry with her. She's also one of the people who doesn't appreciate Henry's creativity or scientific mind. It's odd because she makes him a tater tot pizza, which was their mom's recipe, and that feels like a creative thing, so why she doesn't appreciate his creativity seems odd. She follows Henry into the Overworld and helps to get home as well.
If the comparison to The Wizard of Oz remains, Natalie is not the equivalent to Toto the dog. Momoa's character of Garrett is that equivalent. He instead becomes a surrogate sibling to Henry, rivaling Natalie to some degree, but if the whole point is for Natalie to come to appreciate the creativity of Henry, this film doesn't really allow for that character arc to play out in an effective way. At least, in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, the characters being sucked into the magical world allows for their characters to reveal qualities about themselves they couldn't express in the real world. Here, there really isn't much of that characterization. This whole film is literally moving them from one aspect of the game to the next.
A lot of the film is built on the joke of subverting expectations about the casting of Jack Black and Jason Momoa. Momoa typically plays the action hero who also has the best fight scenes and thrilling moments where his character constantly saves everyone and saves the day. Here, director Jared Hess (Nacho Libre and Napoleon Dynamite) is subverting that expectation. Instead, of having Momoa be this big, buff, very muscular and masculine dude who his amazing in action scenes, Hess has Momoa's character be a dumb and bumbling idiot, as well as be a bit selfish. Black is usually the dumb and bumbling idiot in most films. Black is short and overweight and would not be someone's first thought when thinking of an action star. Black already subverted those expectations in films like Nacho Libre and even Kung Fu Panda (2008), but this film continues that kind of subversion where Black emerges as the ultimate kick-ass and bad-ass action hero.
Danielle Brooks (The Color Purple and Orange Is the New Black) plays Dawn, the real estate agent who sells Natalie and Henry their house in Chuglass. She also runs a mobile petting zoo, so she's good with animals, which seemingly comes in handy later. Otherwise, Brooks is picking up a paycheck here and not much else. Her character is just a tag-along. She's not integral to the plot. She doesn't even get that much in terms of comedic material to play. She's there for Natalie, so Natalie can talk a little about some of the themes here, but Dawn is a character that could be removed and the film would lose nothing. For representation's sake, it's good that she's here, but she doesn't benefit things much more beyond that.
Jennifer Coolidge (The White Lotus and American Pie) rounds out the cast as Marlene, the vice principal of Chuglass High School where Henry is a student. She gets way more comedic bits than Brooks. Her role is way more disposable and literally is her in her own story line that is literally separate from what all the other characters are doing. No question, her character and story line could be removed from this film and it wouldn't affect the narrative at all. In Overworld, there are characters known as "Villagers." Once the portal opens that allows Henry to come to Overworld, one of the villagers named Nitwit is able to go through the portal into the real world where he meets Marlene.
Nitwit and Marlene have a story line together, but it doesn't have any effect or bear any weight on anything else. It reminded me of the scene in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) where one of the shrunken-headed employees escapes from the Netherworld into the real world. This film tries to make it more than the visual gag of the shrunken-headed employee running around the real world, but it still feels like a meaningless joke here.
Rated PG for violence, action, language, rude humor and scary images.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 41 mins.
In theaters.