A Minecraft Movie is a middle of the road family movie.
So a live-action kids movie, based on a game that both the parents and kids know, that actually put in the money to faithfully recreate the video game world, being a giant success, isn't surprising. Especially when there weren't any other kids movies besides Snow White that was released two weeks ahead of time.
Oh wait, everyone's concerned that this is a soulless cash-grab that studios will attempt to replicate moving forward? Yeah ok, I can see that. Just gotta see the movie first. And I'm torn, because while A Minecraft Movie isn't good, there's things about it that I like.
The Setup
The movie centers around Henry and Natalie, who have just moved to the remote town of Chuglass, Idaho. But when a mishap leads Henry to local deadbeat and former video game legend Garrett "The Garbage Man" Garrison, Henry, Natalie, Garrett and their realtor friend Dawn are pulled into a dangerous new world and a fight against a terrifying enemy hoping to destroy it.
If I could summarize the average adult movie viewer's frustration with A Minecraft Movie it would be this: it's a movie for kids. That sounds silly but I think it's an important distinction.
For quite some time, movie-going audiences have gotten used to the idea that movies and content made for kids doesn't have to be shallow entertainment. It can have very adult themes and ideas, be filmed and crafted with as much attention to detail as a period drama, and entertain kids and adults in equal measure.
The go to example are Pixar movies like Wall-E where a movie about a cute robot that says it's own name is also a moving romance and a damning look at humanity's complacent over-consumption as the planet is destroyed whose first half is basically a silent film.
But as a kid who grew up in the nineties, I am all too familiar with "fun for the entire family," live action trash that studios threw out hoping to make a buck on a silly gimmick. And A Minecraft movie fits the bill.
And like any "fun for the entire family" trash, you can still find plenty of moments or things to like and have your kiddos entertained by its cartoonish vibe, the recreation of a game they may have sunk hours into or played with friends, and a bunch of actors who commit as hard as humanly possible to silly one note characters.
So what I'm going to do is highlight the things I liked about the movie and the move into the missed opportunities.
What It Does Right
I'll get into this later, but the bones of a solid story are here. We have a creative kid as our kid insert character who isn't appreciated in the real world, who finds that his abilities and impulses are an asset in this new one. And our primary adults are stumbling to be adults with Henry's sister Natalie being forced to be a breadwinner and a parent to her brother and our man child Garrett Garrison, played by Jason Momoa, being too selfish and obsessed with his own ego to solve his problems, let alone be an asset to a kid.
And the movie is more or less a fetch quest or two that you'd encounter in the game, all through an adventure comedy lens with Jack Black as our guide to this world. So we're incorporating the appeal of the game into the movie.
The set pieces are pretty well staged with a heavy emphasis on physical comedy and you can tell they actually put the money into the effects. There's only a handful of scenes that feel really off or where the greenscreen work is really obvious.
Cast wise we've got everyone playing to type, with Jack Black and Jason Momoa playing the standard character types the other guy would normally play (i.e. Black is our resident bad ass and Momoa is our over-confident schlub). but my standout has to be Danielle Brooks who provides a fun but grounding presence to the rest of the cast that are playing things to the rafters.
There's also some inspired moments like Henry facing off a villain that highlights all of his insecurities or some fun bits of camera work in the action sequences, but story-wise. That's a missed opportunity.
Missed Opportunity
The outline of this movie could work. We have a young man whose creativity isn't appreciated in his day to day life who enters a world where said creativity could both be an asset and make him a hero.
Too bad he doesn't feel like the focal point of the story.
The movie opens with Jack Black giving us a LOTR styled-lore dump, which is a lot but that's not bad for introducing a new world folks might not know. And then before we even meet Henry and Natalie we meet Grant Garrison and get an entire montage of his backstory.
It's hard to gauge how/why this happens, I imagine either Jason Moma flexed his producer muscle or the team making the film found it funnier, but that distance between the moving starting and even meeting Henry or getting a feel for him as a character, becomes more obvious as the film progresses.
We dedicate entire action beats and detours to Grant's hang-ups and his heroic moments while Henry is...a contributor but mostly just there. So by the end the real journey is Grant proving that he has more to offer than bravado and learning how to make friends.
Admittedly this is also more of a kids movie from the nineties thing because half the time the kids were right and the adults needed to learn from the kids. But a more complete movie would offer arcs for everyone.
We dedicate entire action beats and detours to Grant's hang-ups and his heroic moments while Henry is...a contributor but mostly just there. So by the end the real journey is Grant proving that he has more to offer than bravado and learning how to make friends.
Admittedly this is also more of a kids movie from the nineties thing because half the time the kids were right and the adults needed to learn from the kids. But a more complete movie would offer arcs for everyone.
I think it would work a lot better if the clear theme of the movie was the value of collaboration, which could work for almost all of the characters. Life is hard. We need help from other people. Celebrate each other. Work together. Fight off evil together. That works. Instead it mostly feels like one guy having a mid-life crisis.
The Verdict: Eh
As limited as it is, I couldn't bring myself to hate A Minecraft Movie. There's just enough jokes and bits that made me laugh, the cast are all more or less charming, and there's little moments I had fun latching on to. In short, it's a middle of the road family movie. 5/10
No comments:
Post a Comment