A Minecraft Movie, maybe the first film since The Emoji Movie where it feels like the creative intention is to make ‘Meme Movie’, a film where you’re in the cinema but you already feel like you’re watching something made for vertical viewing on TikTok in 25 second clips. But that’s okay, this isn’t even a film for Gen Z anymore, this is the first ever Gen Alpha film, perhaps this is the watershed moment where now all film promotion tries to recapture ‘CHICKEN JOCKEY’ to get 8 year old butts in seats.

What’s crazy about A Minecraft Movie is that some of it really works! There’s a character called General Chungus that gave me an uncontrollable laugh every time his name was said, even I’m not too far gone to not enjoy something like that. Jennifer Coolidge’s headmaster character is such a funny side plot, almost feeling like she’s in a completely different movie than everyone else. Does Jennifer know that Minecraft isn’t about falling in love with a villager? And even though Jack Black is just playing Jack Black, his character does work in this context. He is there literally to spout exposition in an enthusiastic way and to me that works. Yes, when hearing that Steve was meant to be played by Matt Berry but scheduling conflicts got in the way, you do think longingly about that parallel universe, but we live in this one and Black was perfectly fine. Jason Momoa plays his character Garrett with the most seriousness you’ve ever seen him in any role, and it is fun to begin with but it does start to get tiring after a while since it really is just exceedingly one-note. The rest of the actors are utterly phoning it in, Danielle Brooks is getting paid and she’s going to read those lines and then she’s going back to her trailer. She is putting absolutely nothing more than the bare minimum and you kinda have to respect that.

Visually the character designs of the Minecraft inhabitants are well done, it has a clear sense of style and I think that’s executed well. There is, however, an awful amount of some of the most dodgy green screen CGI I’ve seen in a long time. Whenever they’re flying it looks utterly awful, and almost every background environment makes no effort to look seamless with how the actors are lit. I know what you’re thinking, who gives a fuck how well lit A Minecraft Movie is… and I agree with you but if we let standards slip even in a film of this juvenile nature, what more aspects of filmmaking do we throw out? The 180 degree line? Different mm lenses? It’s a slippery slope guys that’s why I have to call it out.

Look, I was expecting a horrendous film but what I got was at best generic. I think that is a great achievement for a film of this nature and tone. It certainly has it’s issues (the script is diabolically bad at times, made even worse when you see it has SIX individual credited writers, and allegedly another dozen uncredited), but at the end of the day I’m sure my future kids will like it and I do think it is a good homage to what a creative and, at times, odd game Minecraft has been for the last 10+ years.