{"id":30961,"date":"2025-04-03T00:45:22","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T07:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=30961"},"modified":"2025-04-03T00:45:22","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T07:45:22","slug":"the-minecraft-movie-emphasizes-weirdness-and-oddball-humor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=30961","title":{"rendered":"THE MINECRAFT MOVIE Emphasizes Weirdness and Oddball Humor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Running Time: 100 minutes<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This feature from Warner Bros. opens exclusively at\ntheaters on April 4th<\/sup>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m an old guy now, so I never realized this, but the 2011\ngame Minecraft<\/em> has been the most popular and highest selling game in the\nworld for some time now. Apparently, there are somewhere around 170 million\npeople worldwide who are probably playing it right now. It\u2019s a \u201csandbox\u201d game\n(that can be played individually or in groups) set in a large world of blocks\nin which individuals can do pretty much anything they like. Build a community,\ncraft tools, go on adventures and complete tasks, fight computer-generated\nblocky figures, and even, well, try to mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sounds interesting enough, but the lack of clear goals might\nmake it difficult to create a clear outline for a film adaptation. Serious\ngamers expecting some serious and epic video-game adaptation might take\nexception to The Minecraft Movie<\/em>. It plays to a family audience and is\ncertainly not interested in addressing subjects like obsessive gaming. Instead,\nthe film is purely focused on delivering silly fun. While it may not be a\nclassic, it does possess an oddball charm and did raise a few chuckles over the\ncourse of its zippy run time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The opening introduces viewers to Steve (Jack Black), a\nsmall-town loner obsessed with mining. He discovers a portal and lands in the\nOverworld, where everything and everyone is block-shaped. Later, early-20s\nmedia rep Natalie (Emma Myers) and her introverted teenage brother Henry\n(Sebastian Hansen) arrive in the very same town after losing their mother,\ntrying to make a new start at a potato chip factory. Real estate agent Dawn\n(Danielle Brooks) tries to help them fit in, but things go wrong from the start.\nHenry befriends cash-strapped entrepreneur Garrett \u201cThe Garbage Man\u201d Garrison\n(Jason Momoa), a once famous arcade-gamer who now appears on Storage Wars<\/em>-type\nprogram. When they discover a powerful cube-shaped orb, the group are\ntransported to the Overworld. They learn that the sinister Malgosha (Rachel\nHouse) is plotting to escape from the dark Underworld, take control of the\nOverworld, and then presumably raid the real world. The heroes have to retrieve\nthe orb and save the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It’s pretty broad and silly from the opening moments.\nAdmittedly, a great deal of the film features the characters essentially\nfalling flat on their faces and\/or reacting in shock to the truly surreal\nthings surrounding them. Yet the quirkiness is amusing and for this reviewer\nmore gags landed than expected. This weird backdrop allows for some creativity,\nincluding weapons like a tater-tot gun that is used to entertaining effect.\nThere is also a great exchange between Steve and Malgosha during the finale that\nkeeps on going, and the audience laughing, as it continues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The script pokes fun at the nonsensical elements of the\nworld, including that cube orb, as well as the story (which actually all takes\nplace within 24 hours), not to mention the foibles of Garrett. The character is\na selfish lunkhead, consistently trying to show off, which, of course,\nconsistently backfires and Mamoa sells it well. And for older folk, in spite of\nthe actual game being from the 2010s and there being references to the era\n(like Storage Wars<\/em>), there are just as many nods to the 1980s, arcade\ngames and heavy metal. In fact, viewers can expect a catchy musical number near\nthe close of the film that is delightfully ridiculous. Everyone on screen\nappears to be having a good time.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For those unfamiliar with the game, there are references\nthat will fly right over one\u2019s head. Many young attendees let out a big\nreaction at certain points that were completely lost on me. That includes a\npost-credit scene that really seemed to impress kiddos. It doesn\u2019t go out of\nits way to explain all the minutiae of the game, but individuals like myself\nare hardly the target audience.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obviously, not every joke lands. Many gamers and general audiences may have trouble with the very peculiar characters and sense of humor. The film was directed by Jared Hess, who is responsible for Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre<\/em>, Gentlemen Broncos<\/em> (which is a personal favorite) and other efforts. Hess didn\u2019t write this movie and it is more kid-friendly, but this apple doesn\u2019t feel like it has fallen too far off the same tree.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Minecraft Movie<\/em> won\u2019t be for all and likely isn\u2019t\nanything you ever would have seen in the game itself, but that\u2019s perfectly fine\nby me. It\u2019s silly, it\u2019s strange and quite unlike what you\u2019d expect to see\ncoming out of a major studio. The cast are invested in the weirdness, and, if\nyou can sit back and simply take it all in, it might just leave a smile on your\nface.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Running Time: 100 minutes This feature from Warner Bros. opens exclusively at theaters on April 4th. I\u2019m an old guy now, so I never realized this, but the 2011 game Minecraft has been the most popular and highest selling game in the world for some time now. Apparently, there are somewhere around 170 million people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":30966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[216,4660,5161,6939,7314,7518,10085,10398,10432,14004,14005,17889,21601,21602,21603,21604,23775,23989],"class_list":["post-30961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-216","tag-comedy","tag-danielle-brooks","tag-emma-myers","tag-fantasy","tag-film-adaptation","tag-jack-black","tag-jared-hess","tag-jason-momoa","tag-minecraft","tag-minecraft-adaptation","tag-sebastian-hansen","tag-the-minecraft-movie","tag-the-minecraft-movie-film-review","tag-the-minecraft-movie-movie-review","tag-the-minecraft-movie-review","tag-video-game-adaptation","tag-warner-bros"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30961\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}