(Image via nytimes.com)

Business Manager: Brendan Flaherty

Email: bflaherty1@umassd.edu

After much hype and waiting, the anticipated Minecraft movie has come to theater, bringing millions of fans to watch their beloved game on the big screen.

For the purposes of a fair and honest review, I will speak about how well the movie would have performed from a target demographic perspective, but I will also give my own experience, thoughts, and opinions.

I will also break up this review into three sections: the lead up to watching it before April 4th, what I noticed while watching, and the final conclusion.

The Lead Up

It was announced with the first official trailer about 4 months ago that the beloved game of Minecraft was coming to the big screens. 

Many fans were skeptical with the trailer looking very different from the actual game.

From the looks of each creature in the trailer to the actors casted for the major roles and down to the way people believed the movie should have looked, there wasn’t a single way that the trailer didn’t disappoint many fans of the game.

These fans are most likely people who have played the game since they were very young. Minecraft first released back in 2009, so there have been many fans in the making now, leading to much anticipation for what a movie about this game could look like.

On top of this, the trailer featured the creatures from the game but with a hyper-realistic style that looked completely different from the blocky, simplified look that the game’s creatures hold.

Creating plenty of quotable lines, the trailer featured the main cast of characters including Jack Black as Steve, the main character of the game.

As the movie release day approached, more trailers were dropped, and more promotionals were done. McDonald’s dropped A Minecraft Movie Meal as a way to generate more hype for the movie, which has likely paid off now at this point.

The only thing left to do was actually watch the movie, which released in theaters on April 4th, 2025.

The Movie

The movie was jam-packed with plenty of funny moments for kids and even some adults right from the start.

It was obvious just how necessary Jack Black was to keep the fun and comedic nature of the movie going. On top of his performance as Steve, other characters were also involved.

From here on, I will include spoilers to the movie so be warned before you read ahead.

I should also mention that I will use a lot of Minecraft terminology, so if it doesn’t make sense, then it might make sense to play the game first.

!SPOILER WARNING!

The main cast is composed of Jason Momoa as Garrett the “Garbage Man”; Sebastian Hansen as Henry; Emma Myers as Natalie; and Danielle Brooks as Dawn.

There are, of course, many other cameos throughout the movie as well, like Jens Bergensten (one of the creators of Minecraft), and Jennifer Coolidge as the local school’s principal.

There was even a small cameo from a few notable YouTubers who brought much love and attention to the game. Those Youtubers were DanTDM, Aphmau, Mumbo Jumbo, and LDShadowLady, each of which have likely brought many people to enjoy the game in their own special way.

The movie starts out with Steve’s backstory and how he came to find the Minecraft realm, which was extremely fast and unspecific.

The main plot of the movie focuses around the Orb of Dominance, which was an item first explained in the game Minecraft Dungeons. With this item, it allowed people to travel from the game’s world to the real world utilizing the Earth Crystal.

Essentially, the main cast find the Orb and go to the Minecraft world. When they’re confronted by the night time mobs that spawn, the Earth Crystal breaks, preventing the cast from going back home.

They are eventually rescued by Steve and go on a quest to find a new Earth Crystal in the Woodland Mansion. 

Meanwhile, the Piglin armies in the Nether gather to bring chaos to the overworld.

The Piglin army, led by Rachel House playing Malgosha, the leader of the pigs, seeks to control the Orb of Dominance to create an everlasting darkness in the overworld and bring destruction and chaos to the world.

Throughout the main cast’s adventure, they find all sorts of items and features in the game and get to use them, like elytras, iron golems, and minecart tracks.

After losing the Orb of Dominance in a confrontation between Malgosha and the cast, the cast grabs as much loot as they can to prepare for the oncoming war that would soon ensue and hopefully bring peace back to the overworld.

After lots of mining and crafting, they confront the evil Piglins and stop their dastardly plan of ruining the overworld. The whole cast, along with Steve, return to the overworld and enjoy their time hanging out together.

The movie ends with a post credit scene with a quick cameo of a person playing Alex, the female counterpart to Steve, which got fans hyped.

The Review

Like I mentioned in the beginning, this movie was quite clearly made with a much younger audience in mind. The target audience is not going to see the movie opening night and at 10pm.

No, the target audience is watching the movie during the day and on a random Saturday with their parents who know nothing about the game Minecraft.

This did not stop all the other fans from also seeing this movie.

In my theater, there were at least a hundred fans of the game, ranging in all sorts of ages—fans who dressed up as Steve, fans who got the AMC A Minecraft Movie combo, and fans who were just there for the hype.

Let me tell you, everyone in that theater went crazy over all the quotable lines. Basically anything that Jack Black said about the game was a quotable line.

For example, when Jack Black was about to say “Chicken jockey,” everyone went completely silent, and then everyone all together repeated the line as he said it. Everyone cheered as loud as they could and clapped at every quoted moment.

On one hand, for the more casual moviegoers, it could be seen as annoying. A bunch of grown people going ballistic over this kids movie could be seen as irritating and stupid. This is probably what the movie staff were thinking that night.

On the other hand, as an attendee that night, it was special and heartwarming to see so many fans come together to celebrate a movie about a game that brought us all together as kids.

Minecraft has and always will be a game about working together and playing with your friends. Sure, you can play it alone like Steve was doing, but life is much more fun and fulfilling with friends. 

Maybe this is what the movie is trying to convey when Steve decides to join his friends in the normal world.

Yes, the movie is silly, and yes it is probably intended for a younger audience, but we need to remember what is really special about this movie.

For one hour and 41 minutes, people were brought together to enjoy a fun film about a beloved game. There was no fighting, there was no anger, there was only a room full of people who loved a game.

Critics will probably give this movie a middle ground score, like IMDB giving it a 6.1/10. But they probably didn’t go into the movie with the same experience that I had. 

There were things that were not elaborated on and things that were confusing, but this movie didn’t have to be extremely in-depth. It just had to be a fun and wholesome movie that could bring the fans together.If that was the goal, then I’d say the movie accomplished it extremely well. I left the theater with a whole heart and a mission to load up a new Minecraft world as soon as possible.