I was fully prepared to dismiss A Minecraft Movie as junk for its target audience, and then a funny thing happened in fact pretty early in the movie: I was laughing. Then I laughed again. Genuine laughter. I’m here to say that the Minecraft movie is not the silly and stupid kid’s movie you may have dreaded. It’s actually a pretty pleasant fantasy adventure movie that, while aimed for kids, can still be enjoyable for like-minded adults looking for some colorful and silly escapism. It’s hip to be square, baby.

Steve (Jack Black) is a guy who loves to create, and mines for whatever reason, and finds a portal to another very cube-centrist world. In this new world, Steve finds friends and freedom, but this is ruined when a nefarious force comes through wanting to conquer this new world as well as Steve’s home world. He sends out help and seals off a portal. Years later, a pair of siblings, Henry (Sebastian Hansen) and Natalie (Emma Myers), move into Steve’s old home and discover his portal, along with an middle-aged arcade game champion and local legend, Garret (Jason Momoa), and realtor, Dawn (Danielle Brooks). These newcomers must adjust to this strange world and defend themselves against zombies, creepers, and other dangers. Fortunately, Steve serves as a valuable guide, but can they all defeat the evil forces?

There’s a robust silliness to Minecraft that invites you to not ever take things too seriously and have fun with the vibes. Much like the Super Mario Brothers adaptation, there isn’t really a story to adapt here. There were several moments that felt like it was a satirical parody of the fantasy adventure movie while also working as examples of fantasy adventure tropes. Refreshingly, much of the humor is not derived from fish-out-of-water juxtaposition. This could have easily been a “Well, that happened” kind of nonchalant comedy, holding up the weirdness to scrutiny for easy yuks. It finds better jokes through pushing further than simple observational irony (“My dad says math has been debunked”). It’s good-natured humor that keeps things positive and goofy, channeling the open-sandbox creativity of the video game. Its “be yourself” message is easier to accept than more disingenuous kid’s movie junk like The Emoji Movie. The Minecraft world is presented less as a purchasable video game rather than a new world to explore that rewards exploration (during daylight hours). The very enemy of the movie is a sorceress (voiced by Rachel House) that hates creativity and sees it as a waste in her pursuit of always plundering and hoarding more gold. I might be reaching but there seems even like a possible A.I. reading there, with our giant pig sorceress standing in for tech bros who are trying to eliminate avenues of creativity because all they care about is wealth and cannot understand the appeal of creativity. The movie has several little comic asides that caused me to chuckle and laugh and smile, and I looked over at my adult friend beside me for my screening, and his response was the same. We both had been surprisingly taken by the genial silliness of this movie.

Black (Jumanji) has become a kids’ movie juggernaut thanks to his zany energy and willingness to go above and beyond no matter the request. He’s a charming and delightful performer by nature, whether he’s voicing an animated character or singing a sexually explicit song about all the positions he will execute. He dips out for the first half hour after the exposition dump that opens the movie, but once he’s back on screen, it’s easy to remember there just isn’t another actor like Black. He’s funny and completely bought-in with whatever the movie asks for, but every single line and every single gesture is at a ten. He is selling every second of this movie and I can completely understand why some people just might get overstimulated by Black’s histrionics. You can tell the filmmakers were like, “We want our own version of ‘Peaches’ to go viral,” and so we get three different moments of Black singing original songs. This aspect was the most transparent and contrived decision that felt based upon chasing after the success of another movie popular with the kids. The actor I enjoyed the most was Momoa (Fast X) who has lots of fun undercutting his own masculine image and his character’s over-inflated ego masking his insecurity.

The visuals are bright and enjoyably retro. The Minecraft video game is famously low-grade with its pixelated graphics, more akin to the visual landscape of video games from the 1990s than 2011 when it was first published (it has since become the best-selling video game of all time). Starting with that visual scheme, it allows the movie to be good looking without having to be photo-realistic with its CGI. We have a stylized world to explore that’s full of vibrant colors and characters. This is easily the best looking movie of director Jared Hess’ (Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre) career. His skewed sensibilities work as a nice fit with the comic direction of the movie, and there are some engaging visual arrangements.

Regrettably, this adventure is a bit of a boys-only club. The female half of our adventurers don’t really get the attention that the boys do. Both Natalie and Dawn sit out for long stretches of the movie that I forgot they were in the movie. Usually, these kinds of stories make it so each character has some kind of arc that can be fulfilled by the end, even if it’s minor. I suppose you might be able to argue that Natalie is learning to accept the responsibility of being a parental figure to her younger sibling, and Dawn getting the gumption to quit her job to pursue her dream of running a petting zoo. I’m not keen on bestowing credit for just having a scene at the end where the characters celebrate whatever their goals had been. If you don’t see the work and the development toward those goals, then you don’t get the credit. Why can’t these women have their own adventure that meaningfully connects to the larger plot? Or, even better, why can’t they also go along and contribute to the quest along with all the boys? It’s not like I think the movie is actively trying to downplay the role and importance of women, but it’s also disappointing that there are clear tiers of the characters as far as what kinds of fun and story integration they ultimately earn.

Behold, the Gen Alpha cultural epoch and its name is “chicken jockey.” By now you may have heard of this infamous scene that has caused some theaters to erupt in a calamity of noise, rowdy behavior, and throwing a live chicken at the screen. I even had a theater employee warn our audience before the movie began what is acceptable behavior and how people not abiding by these expectations would be removed from the theater. I’ve been watching movies my entire adult life and other than special screenings for movies intended for audience interaction, like Rocky Horror and The Room, I have never had a theater employee warn me about proper decorum, and this was before the Minecraft movie. It’s astounding. What’s also astounding is how ultimately meaningless this moment is. It’s a baby zombie that falls atop a chicken and rides it, and from what I’m told, this is a very rare occurrence in the game, but I guess it means something more to a generation of fans relishing a rare reference in their favorite game. While I was standing outside the restroom waiting for my own kid to return, a little girl was impatiently asking her father if he was done using the restroom, much to his growing annoyance. “Please hurry. I don’t want to miss the chicken jockey part,” she explained in desperation. I’m happy that this moment seems to be so highly anticipated for millions of fans, but as an outsider, this moment feels so incidental and flimsy that it would be like a generation excitedly waiting for Indiana Jones to lean against one particular wall.

This movie could have been so much worse, and the fact that it’s relatively breezy, funny, and entertaining for non-fans of Minecraft, such as myself, counts as a success in my book. It’s telling that the title is A Minecraft Movie and not The Minecraft Movie. It is but one story in this universe, and given the popularity, it will surely not be The Last Minecraft Movie. Its runaway success at the box-office means we’re probably headed for even more Gen Alpha-centered game adaptations, like some Roblox game you’ve never heard about if you’re over the age of twenty. Hey, it all might work somehow. This one did.

Nate’s Grade: B