A Minecraft Movie (2025)

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If I’ve learned one thing as a parent, it’s that kids love Jack Black. They loved him as the evil Bowser in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, but in his latest film, A Minecraft Movie, my 4-year-old was confused why the other characters kept calling the actor “Steve.”

“That’s Jack Black, not Steve,” he said.

For even youngsters can see that there’s little dividing Black’s real-life character with the ones he portrays on screen — his avatar, so to speak. Luckily, the comedian seems to know which projects to turn it on for and which to be more tame. A Minecraft Movie is one of the least tame performances I’ve ever seen from him, or anyone for that matter.

via YouTube

In the video game-based movie whose reputation seems to be surpassing the actual movie itself, Black plays Steve, a struggling doorknob salesman with a dream of working in a mine, until one day, he discovers a magical orb that opens a portal to Overworld. In this land, Steve finds his purpose, building entire cities and amusement parks out of blocks, befriending a wolf name Dennis, and generally being able to have a type of freedom not afforded to him in the real world.

One day, however, he accidentally gets sent to the Nether, an underworld type of place run by hooded pigs who imprison him in order to steal the orb to take over the Overworld themselves.

Meanwhile, in the real world, we meet Garrett (Jason Momoa), a video game store owner living in the past, where he used to be a legendary gamer. He befriends a teenage boy named Henry (Sebastian Hansen), an aspiring young artist who just moved into this Idaho town with his sister Natalie (Emma Myers). Eventually, obviously, the characters find the orb (which Steve hid in his real-world bedroom), sending them to Overworld where they meet Steve and must help him defeat the piglin army.

Here, Jack Black is able to do Jack Black things… a LOT. The director, Jared Hess, has teamed up with the actor before in Nacho Libre, and this can only explain why he’s so comfortable giving him this long of a leash with his comedy. Black yells almost every line, hectically thrashes his body around, sings impromptu songs whenever his character feels like it, and shouts, “sneak attack,” an absurd number of times. It’s safe to say he’s the Jack Blackiest we’ve ever seen.

Black’s performance in Minecraft might have not detracted from the movie itself if it hadn’t been constantly competing with Jason Momoa’s own schtick. While Black is wacky, Momoa is essentially a cocky teenager living in an adult man’s body. As Garrett he’s constantly trying to one-up Steve and prove that he’s cooler than him. Black’s comedic identity is branded pretty well but Momoa seems to be recycling archetypal tropes that we’ve seen before in plenty of comedies. Even with the crazy hair, he’s not very funny, even if he does produce one or two chuckles.

If this A-list duel weren’t bad enough, the movie suffers from a rare disease called “protagonist confusion.” We don’t realize how much we rely on our subconscious to inform us who the main characters are in movies. And while Minecraft may be overtly informing us that its protagonist is Steve — based on his narration, Black’s star power, and his inherent gravity on screen — the plot constantly wants us to lean into Henry, the young creative boy who finds himself stuck in Overworld. It also helps that this is a movie for children, who will undoubtedly identify with him.

In terms of the plot, Black serves the utilitarian role of guiding the other characters around Overworld and being their skilled leader, but Henry is the one who gets developed as a character and who becomes the focus of the film’s pathos — as well as the conduit for its themes.

The kids in Minecraft have all of the agency, and for good reason. This is a movie primarily aimed at children, delivering the message that they mustn’t stop creating no matter who’s trying to destroy what they’ve built. As Steve says, it’s harder to create than to destroy, which is the very reason why creating is worth doing.

Henry learns the power of creativity throughout his journey and is the one who accidentally finds himself in this Oz-like land (Steve intended to go through the portal). If anything, Steve is like Glinda the Good, helping Henry on his way down this yellow brick road of discovery. Henry learns so much in Overland but still yearns to return to the world he came from, even if that means he has to face the adversities (his bullies) head-on. The Wizard of Oz comparison is impressively sly but if you notice it, it might only make the inferiority of Minecraft more apparent. I, for one, was still impressed.

Steve and Garrett represent yet another theme that’s less prominent but still interesting: Being a grownup sucks. Like Dorothy, the characters in Minecraft all seem to be grappling with the burdens that come with adulthood. Garrett can’t let go of his youth and Steve has a dead-end job that he hates. Meanwhile, Natalie, barely an adult, finds it difficult to adjust while also becoming the legal guardian for Henry after their mother died. Again, Henry is the Dorothy stand-in here, a kid thrust into a world where he must do grown-up things and help the adults grow as people.

Sure, he gets to explore a magical universe where he’s allowed to be creative and make a difference doing so. But at the end of the day, Overland is not reality — just like a dream, or a video game.

Sure, there are problems with the script, which was written by a large team consisting of Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer, Neil Widener, Gavin James, and Chris Galletta (from a story by Bowman, Palmer, and Allison Schroeder). The jokes are mostly uninspired and feel like leftovers from several 2014 comedies — although some of them will yield laughter from the adults dragooned to the theater. On the other hand, the storytelling by Hess and his writers actually works. I have zero frame of reference for Minecraft, the game, but I followed along really well, and actually feel like I can somewhat grasp the appeal of the video game.

At its best, A Minecraft Movie will embolden kids to be creative and dream, as long as they’re able to come down to Earth every once in a while (there’s no place like home!). When I grew up, children’s media championed the power of being a kid. But today, there really aren’t a lot of movies or shows that truly acknowledge and celebrate the freedoms youngsters still have, at least not without being hyperbolic about the sentiment.

Regardless of the cringe we might feel watching it at times, Minecraft is a great flick for kids. And if they don’t mind a deluge of above-par CGI and don’t find the pair of A-listers too annoying, adults might even enjoy it too.