If you ever find that you’ve fallen asleep in a big-shot Hollywood story meeting, and you need something to say that makes it look like you’ve actually been paying close attention, you could do worse than this. “Whose story is this again?” This question – who is the true focal point of the adventure being pitched? – seems both central to any film and also one of the easiest things to lose track of in the detailing.
A Minecraft Movie reviewDirector: Jared HessProduction companies: Warner Bros. Pictures, Legendary Pictures, Mojang Studios, Vertigo Entertainment, On the Roam, Domain EntertainmentAvailability: Out 4th April at cinemas
And so. A Minecraft Movie. Whose story is this? Is it Jack Black’s, the loveable loner who finds himself drawn inside the world of Minecraft and loves it and thrives in there but loses the doodad that allows him to travel back and forth between worlds, and ends up missing his pet wolf very badly? Is it Jason Momoa’s, a kind of Billy Mitchell knock-off, a former pro-gamer whose business is failing and who finds himself on the cusp of having to admit that he’s actually a loser? Is it the young family, Emma Myers and Sebastien Eugene Hansen, two siblings who are trying to start over in a new town after the death of their parents? Is it Danielle Brooks, a part-time estate agent and woman of many side-hustles who finds herself trying to help the siblings?
All of these people have one thing in common – they all get thrown into the world of Minecraft, where they must find the doodad they need to escape, fighting evil piglins, navigating the nether, learning to both mine and craft and work as a team. Whose story is it? It’s hard to tell. This is a film in which there’s simultaneously quite a lot going on and also not very much. It feels convoluted, but then you write it all down and it’s very simple. We’re stuck inside this place, let’s try to get out again.
So how is it? A few genuinely lovely moments aside – one involving knives, one involving Jack Black in Diamond Armour – A Minecraft Movie is firmly stuck in the cinematic genre of “high spirits” – a genre defined by a lot of energy and good will but little in the way of genuine emotion. This is an interesting genre because, despite its innate likability, nobody actually chooses it at the start of a project. Rather, “high spirits” is where you end up when something isn’t working properly. Hudson Hawk is “high spirits” all the way down. I would argue The Fifth Element is “high spirits” too. I like both these films a lot – possibly too much, even – but I’d struggle to argue that their creators truly wanted them to turn out as they did. Like second tier gangsters, “high spirits” films often have moxie, but not a lot else.