2025, Jared Hess (Nacho Libre) -- download
Two, yes it was terrible, but in a sort of expected Jared Hess sort of way.
Three, no it is not just for kids. Technically, I was "into Minecraft before it was cool". But it would help with this movie if you were one of the generation that is actually still into the game.
So, background. Back in the late 00s, a co-worker knew I was into gaming and introduced me to this weird non-linear game he was playing. At first I was off-put by the low-end looking graphics, the blocky nature of it, but I gave it a try, especially intrigued by the open world, no goals nature. And soon after, entranced by the music, the open ended nature, the self guided play - I was hooked. This was the early days, the Java days. I actually bought it. Not long after, this coworker recognized this was a good game for kids, and built a server for his own boys, and their friends, to play on. All I can say about that is that kids are generally sociopathic when playing games.
The game evolved, expanded from being worked on solely by one developer (Notch; even mentioning his name is too good for what he devolved into) to a small company (Mojang) and then eventually was bought up by Microsoft. By the time it actually launched 1.0 it was a phenom game. It was known the world wide and it was a thing that parents were now peripherally aware that kids were into, not adults. But I still subscribed to its early versioning, the pre-multiplayer days, when it was about a single person, in a single world, exploring and surviving and building to their heart's content, wary of danger but with infinite possibility.
It is this last ideal that the script hinges off. The movie itself, as all Hollywood versions of "cool things" took over ten years to come to actual life, arguably long after it could have actually banked on that cool factor. I mean, many of the kids who were originally into the game have now graduated high school. Sure, its still a thing but not the phenomena it once was. Yet, the core story, the idea of a guy (Steve) who finds a weird blocky world which is open to his singular creativity, is there. And you get the sense the writers at least heard of this earlier ideal to the game.
But most of the movie is from the phenom era. All the in-jokes and monsters and items and world building are things that leave me wondering, having abandoned the game when it became ubiquitous, when it garnered a purpose, instead of just being entirely open ended. So, this movie was not for me. But who was it for, as I heard it got lambasted by even "the fans" ?
Anywayz, yes, Steve (Jack Black, King Kong) gives us a preamble wherein he explains his Hess-ian life of being denied a life as a child-miner, until he finds his way into a magic world. After establishing his perfect life in this world, a portal into yet another world is found (the Nether), one that is the opposite of his own blocky, bright world, one of pig men and monsters and dark magics. To protect his world, he sends the portal generating magic orb with his blocky wolf pet Dennis into the "real world" to hide it.
Enter the "real world", well as real as anything from Hess is. Its surreal more than real. Natalie (Emma Myers, Wednesday) and Henry (Sebastian Hansen, Lisey's Story) arrive in Chuglass, where they've been forced to move after their mother's passing. Natalie is a social media guru and will help increase interest in the town's potato chip factory, that is, until Henry accidentally destroys the mascot/statue stuck to the factory roof. Henry is a bit of an inventor, but in the Wallace & Grommit vein... weird, not quite working stuff. His rocket pack experiment doesn't go well.
Henry ends up at the gaming store of hot pink garbed loser, and ex-arcade-gaming-champion, Garrett "The Garbage Man" Garrison (Jason Momoa, Aquaman). Hidden in his store is the orb (magic portal generating one) and through a conjunction of plot requirements, everyone, also including real estate agent / mobile petting zoo entrepreneur (basically a llama in the backseat of her station wagon) Dawn, end up in the blocky world, called The Overworld.
As is expected of their first night in Minecraft, night comes far too quickly and with it, zombies. Henry has already discovered how to punch trees and build "a house" but zombies and skeletons riding spiders are still trying to defeat them. IYKYK. That's when Steve appears to then provide exposition and prowess for the rest of the movie, explaining all the elements of the game that appear, especially the in-jokes and wink wink nod nods. Oh, and they accidentally break the orb, but just before they do so, a "villager" (Minecraft's NPCs who speak a mumbly language) wanders through the portal into our world, where he is hit by a car driven by the school vice-principle (Jennifer Coolidge, 2 Broke Girls). Insert disturbing romance side plot.
After this, the movie is all quest quest quest. Steve knows where they have to go to get a new orb, but his nemesis, Malgosha (Rachel House, Thor: Ragnarok), queen of the pig men, who only has interest in mining for gold, and using the orb to allow her Nether world to enter the Overworld. She wants the orb, Steve doesn't want her to have it, but she has an army at her back.
Its fun, its silly and its bright and fanciful. I said the movie was terrible, but naming Hess as the reason makes the terrible the intent? His movies are all a wonky left-of-centre depictions of odd people doing odd things but with their heart. I just wish he had reined in Jack Black a bit more, who plays his Steve as an unhinged maniac constantly screaming his methods of madness to all around -- in other words, being full Jack Black. And while I am tempted to say I would have liked the movie more if not for the Hess-ian style to the characters, I have a deep seated belief the movie would have been much much more terrible if it took itself too seriously. I strive to envision a better movie for this property, and I fail.
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