Minecraft: The Movie Review. An Excellent 1.5-hour Trailer for a Game Released 16 Years Ago

Minecraft needs no introduction. Markus Persson's brainchild became a phenomenon captivating millions of players, but attempts to expand the universe beyond the original game remain questionable. Now Mojang, with Warner Bros. support, has made a new bet Minecraft: The Movie. Did the film meet expectations, and will the franchise receive a new development impulse? We watched it and are eager to share our impressions!

It's no secret that gamers meet any news about Minecraft expanding beyond its sandbox with skepticism rather than interest, especially when Dungeons and Legends failed to replicate the original's success. After the announcement and first trailer of Minecraft: The Movie, doubts in the gaming community intensified: the graphics and visual style were criticized, the directorial approach seemed vague... Looking at the trailers, it was unclear — is this a film for children and teenagers, or for those approaching thirty who grew up with Minecraft?!

Minecraft: The Movie is not a game adaptation, not animation, not a classic blockbuster, and not even traditional cinema. It's an adaptation of Minecraft's very essence brought to the big screen through CGI. Without computer gaming experience, it's difficult to comprehend what's happening. Unfortunately, the creators failed to clearly convey this during the advertising campaign, since proper positioning would have significantly improved the film's reception by general audiences.

Many elements come from games: scene techniques and dialogues between characters (who cannot be called personalities even with the best intention), the Overworld demonstration, and intense action sequences that make you want to grab a gamepad and beat everyone up. The most radical element is the camera positioning — here Minecraft: The Movie overturns the conventional view of films and might shock cinephiles.

All gamers know about the third-person view, where the camera is behind and slightly above the character, allowing you to simultaneously see their model and the game world. The film implements an inversion of the third-person view: the viewer watches characters from the front or side for most of the runtime. Moreover, the characters almost always fill the center of the frame, with the square Overworld literally «enveloping» them. Classical laws of cinematography and animation don't apply here.

Mojang didn't forget about fan service, making the film trigger nostalgia every minute. Hitting blocks, resource mining, building, crafting and recipes, specific gameplay mechanics like redstone railways or creeper farms — all these familiar elements are utilized to their fullest. Even fistfights and other violence are portrayed to avoid looking cruel while remaining recognizable within Minecraft's style: everything is cubic and cartoonish, but it's clear when someone gets eaten.

The graphics are crisp, the cubic style carefully transferred to 4K, and the 3D effects in IMAX impress. The creators didn't reinvent the wheel — they took familiar textures and models and improved them while preserving Minecraft's signature style. The film is bright and colorful at any moment, even dark and gloomy areas like the Nether possess their visual charm.

The plot is predictably simple: four random people — Garrett «Trash Man» Harrison, played by Jason Momoa; teenager Henry, portrayed by Sebastian Hansen; his sister Natalie, played by Emma Myers; and a strong woman Dawn, performed by Danielle Brooks — unexpectedly find themselves in the blocky Overworld.

Their ordinary lives collapse in an instant, and now, to return home, this motley crew must adapt to the new reality and submit to its strange rules. Steve — an experienced crafter played by Jack Black — becomes their guide in this cubic chaos.

Plot-wise, we have a classic «fish out of water» story in an alternative universe with linear action development: heroes move from point to point, overcome obstacles, fight creepers and zombies, and try to stop the invasion of Malgosha's minions, the queen of piglins. The finale features an epic battle, of course. For a video game, it would make an excellent quest; for cinema, it's hollow.

Structurally, the film resembles a road movie where new characters appear in each act, and all storylines collide at one point in the finale. A clear timeline would have helped, but it's not evident in the film — nights follow days in both worlds, but the entire narrative seems to fit into less than two days.

Evaluating Minecraft: The Movie from an artistic value perspective is futile. The authors failed to convey any ideas embedded in the plot from the beginning, and the heroes' images are extremely schematic, revealed through functional episodes. Speaking of which...

Jason Momoa's character is a gamer beginning to burn out, whose best days were in his youth. His business went bankrupt, and he's struggling to make ends meet. Emma Myers plays Natalie — an older sister who must care for her younger brother Henry while juggling responsibilities, a new job, and adaptation to an unfamiliar place. Henry himself is a brilliant but introverted teenager capable of creating anything from anything. He needs to fit into a new school, but that's difficult with strange teachers and aggressive classmates.

Simple ordinary people that the audience will believe in? Exactly. But they have one strong point — none of the heroes is portrayed as hysterical, idiotic, psychotic, or with any other deviations — and you know how fashionable that is now. The acting is uneven: Jack Black, Sebastian Hansen, and Emma Myers try to immerse themselves in their roles, but Jason Momoa plays himself as if invited to filming without a script.

Character arcs? The deepest one involves the «Trash Man» — he's so eager to fix his situation that he makes a dirty deal with Steve: a portal cube in exchange for jewels. Eventually, he gets diamonds but gives the cube to Henry for some reason, then unexpectedly sacrifices himself to save his friends. Why? How did he reach this conclusion? Don't overthink it, viewer — we already have another action scene coming up. With proper skill, they could have at least provided motivation: themes of friendship, attachment to the Minecraft world, internal rebirth — but no, Momoa simply disappears, leaving the viewer feeling that this act was unjustified.

Development of other characters? Well, they got rich. A couple of gold ingots and kilograms of diamonds from the Overworld work wonders, you know. Throughout the film, Natalie is shown as a loving sister with a warm heart, caring for her brother. But everything resolves well — after becoming wealthy, Natalie quits dreary SMM marketing and opens a kung fu school. Henry becomes a «creative master», combining studies, video game programming, and arcade machine assembly.

During the screening, viewers don't have time to get bored because something is constantly happening on screen: heroes mourn the loss of their native world, then fight creepers and zombies, find Steve, face a new threat — piglins — and so on every five minutes. Every ten minutes there's a sharp turn, creating a sense of endless movement. Importantly, despite this pace, the film doesn't descend into chaotic mess; the director and screenwriters somehow maintained balance: the rhythm between situation, character reactions, dialogues, and action is well-maintained.

It's good that they considered viewers who never played Minecraft. Game mechanics, biomes, crafting, and enemies are logically explained. If the viewer is a gamer — deep references await them.

Moreover, Minecraft: The Movie doesn't try to appear as a serious work; on the contrary, every scene is infused with humor and comic situations. No threats, grudges, conflicts at raised tones, or gangster-style showdowns. Even the final battle between Steve and piglin queen Malgosha resembles the climax of a children's cartoon. Classic techniques of such films are present: «shout louder in any unclear situation» or scenes where heroes discuss the difficulty of growing up and how good their childhood was.

Perhaps such a film is exactly what's needed in spring: light, kind, unobtrusive, without global catastrophes and pompous superheroes.

Against other major premieres this year — when the new Captain America turned out to be a vague superhero drama, and the new Snow White proved a failure — Minecraft: The Movie has every chance to recoup and attract viewers. With its bright and fun adventure in a familiar blocky world, it fulfills its entertainment function.

It's worth noting that this is another attempt to bring a game universe to the big screen, and it's much more successful than the recent Borderlands. It will surely bring pleasure to fans and offer other viewers a light, relaxing session with popcorn.