Movie Review: 'A Minecraft Movie' is a Stage for Jack Black

A Minecraft Movie

Directed by Jared Hess

Written by Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer, Neil Widener, Gavin James, Chris Galletta

Starring Jack Black, Jason Mamoa, Danielle Brooks, Emma Myers, Sebastian Hansen

Release Date April 4th, 2025

Published April 4th, 2025

A Minecraft Movie stars Jack Black as Steve, a dreamer whose creativity is somehow linked to mines. Steve lives to be a miner but when he was young, they would not let him. As he grew up, he forgot about mining until daily life became too boring and he realized he was now old enough to become a miner. With his pick axe in hand, Steve enters a wacky looking mine and stumbles his way to find a portal to a new world. In this new world, Steve’s creativity allows him to create anything he can imagine and for the next 30 or so years, that’s all he does.

Along the way, Steve tames a wolf and names him Dennis. Together, they have the best time until a group of pigs from another universe attempt to invade Steve’s mining paradise. In order to protect his utopia, Steve gives a square glowing orb, their word, not mine, to Dennis who secrets it away, back to Steve’s home in the real world where it will remain hidden for three decades before being found by Garrett ‘The Garbage Man’ Garrison, the 1989 World Video Game Champion.

Garrett, now living in Idaho, is broke and living for his past glory as a Video Game Champion. His life is interrupted by the arrival of Henry (Sebastian Hansen), a new kid in town, living with his older sister, Natalie (Emma Myers). Henry visits Garrett’s video game shop where he finds the glowing orb and activates it, leading to the portal to Steve’s world. When Natalie goes searching for Henry, she’s joined by her friend, Dawn (Danielle Brooks), and Steve’s dog Dennis leads them to the portal where they follow Henry and Garrett into Steve’s world.

And that’s how A Minecraft Movie starts. From there, we get a lot of Minecraft references and lore and it’s actually much easier to follow than you might imagine. I have never played Minecraft and likely never will but I didn’t have any problem following the action. I likely did not get a lot of the referential humor of the movie but the film makes up for that in the performance of Jack Black whose madman energy is fully unleashed in A Minecraft Movie. Jack Black is like our modern incarnation of Robin Williams, a performer capable of riffing at the pace of a Tommy Gun, guaranteeing that if even half of the jokes land, that’s enough to get a few big laughs for all audiences.

Jack Black is the best reason to see A Minecraft Movie if you are not already a fan of the popular video game. Black is having a great time going completely over the top, indulging in this weird universe, and bowling over his fellow cast members with his boundless comic energy. The rest of the cast is fine. Jason Mamoa’s loser character is a bit one note and the lead kids, Sebastian Hansen and Emma Myers are a bit bland, but they do enough to not be completely blown off the screen by Jack Black. The only other actor who seems to get the balance of the real world and the minecraft world is Danielle Brooks who earns whatever few laughs aren’t coming from Jack Black being Jack Black.

Indie movie fans may find the odd tone of the early, real world scenes in A Minecraft Movie strangely familiar. That will be because the movie is directed by Napoleon Dynamite writer-director Jared Hess. The real world scenes in A Minecraft Movie have a similar heightened reality, aesthetic, and timeless quality that set Napoleon Dynamite apart from other movies. For instance, you can see a whole lot of John Gries’ Uncle Rico in Jason Mamoa’s Garrett, losers who don’t know they are losers and are lost in dreams of their past glory.

Do I think A Minecraft Movie is a genuinely good movie? Eh, not really. It’s not particularly coherent, it’s a bit all over the place but I did really enjoy Jack Black. I’m a long time fan of Jack Black and it’s been a while since I have seen him this lively and energized on screen. His love for this material is infectious and even as I don’t care at all about Minecraft, Jack Black made me enjoy this bizarre world simply through his manic enthusiasm for it. If you enjoy Jack Black at his most JACK BLACK, or if you are a fan of the game Minecraft, this movie might just work for you.

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