A Minecraft Movie's title doesn't lie. It is, in fact, a Minecraft movie.
Now, generally, I'm not the biggest fan of Minecraft. It's a game I respect the
heck out of due to how sheerly big it is, beyond the controversies regarding its
history of owners and creators. You know, Notch and Microsoft. Jeb gets a pass, if I recall correctly.
When they started showing that the movie based around the game was being finished, it puzzled me.
"What would the movie even be like?" I wondered, for approximately five seconds.
And frankly, I don't know what I expected with the final product.
First of all, I think I want to share my biggest issue that truly hampered my experience.
The goddamn pacing. Which I hope is obvious to you, if you've seen it.
It's very "a mile a minute" and barely takes time to pause and think on a scene.
The way it was formatted to keep the children with no attention span engaged really harmed
the movie in a lot of ways. There wasn't anything to build up, and it ended up causing
the two female leads to be cast aside in favor of the male ones. It doesn't let them develop.
While I thought the male leads were pretty good, Jack Black doing his thing, Jason Momoa kinda stealing
the show, and Sebastian Hansen being... kinda boring, actually, I didn't really bother to care about the others,
even though Emma Myers and Danielle Brookes had pretty good acting jobs, for what they got.
The fact that I'd rather have around 20 or 30 minutes of extra runtime is honestly a bad thing.
It shows how much care went into the story itself, which is comically little. Which might be the movie's greatest flaw.
The story is really goddamn cliche.
You know it, I know it. This movie plays it incredibly safe. It is a barebones kids movie with no substance.
It's a criticism parroted over and over, you've all heard it before. If you've seen the movie, you know what
I mean. And frankly, if you don't, I'm going to assume you are stupid or a small child. And frankly, you deserve better.
I say it doesn't have any substance because it just tells a story with no thought behind it. It is, as the kids say,
"hype moments and aura". I couldn't really get anything out of the movie other than a couple laughs, and memes.
And if that's all a movie can give me, I'm going to be concerned about it. Even quite concerned.
I'd make a comment on the CGI, but I really just... can't. The Enderman was cool, I guess. The way things like
the Illagers moved unnaturally was a little uncanny and weird. I think the Creeper could have looked more monstrous.
It really looks like it was just some kinda... robot, I suppose, in the movie. I think it was a little disappointing.
And... uh... um...
Honestly, I don't have a conclusion. Other than despite my issues with the movie, I really don't... hate it?
I'm not some Twitter cinephile who uses Letterboxd, I'm one of the least serious guys you know when I'm not
losing my marbles over some friend drama. Or politics. It's just that when I saw the movie, I was disappointed
with a lot of it, and that's all I can really say. I don't want to focus too much on things I have very little good to say about.
I'm unhealthy as it is, honestly.
The movie didn't help.