Armored in a neon pink jacket and geometric sunglasses, Garett “The Garbage Man” Garrison stands cornered in a fighting ring. His opponent? A chicken.
“They want me to fight the chicken?” he asks.
But as a box ominously lowers above the two contenders, it is clear this is no ordinary chicken.
A small, cubic zombie suddenly drops from above, perching upon its back. Standing to the side of the arena, Steve says the line:
“Chicken jockey!”
At an empty screening of “A Minecraft Movie” at AMC 10, there was no explosive audience reaction to the iconic scene, or any of the dialogue for that matter. I was glad the employees were spared from cleaning the popcorn and drinks thrown at other theatres for every “Flint and steel,” “The Nether,” and “Ender pearl.”
Though the chaos would have added to the experience, the near-plotless fever dream of Jack Black exclaiming buzzwords while leading four of the flattest characters I’ve ever seen through a faithful yet uncanny recreation of a childhood game was entertainment enough for me.
Knowing that “A Minecraft Movie” had been in the works for years, I intended to see it no matter what. The trailers’ questionable quality was off-putting, but my personal connection to the game made up for it – even if the movie ended up as a massive corporate cash grab.
The movie – to my pleasant surprise – accurately adapted the game’s mechanics.
I particularly enjoyed seeing redstone, Minecraft’s equivalent of engineering, properly represented through Steve’s chicken farm. Pistons opened to drop lava onto the chicken, which stood on trapdoors to prevent the freshly-cooked meat from burning.
References to the Minecraft community were prevalent as well, with cameos from YouTubers Mumbo Jumbo and DanTDM. A tribute to the late YouTuber Technoblade was also present: a pig wearing a crown was called “a legend.”
I didn’t expect to enjoy the notorious blend of CGI and live action as much as I did – something the Internet had come to despise.
Beyond this, my enjoyment of “A Minecraft Movie” shifts from genuine appreciation to the half- ironic love I typically reserve for B-movies.
The lack of character development and weak story are the primary reasons that it falls flat.
The four misfits that found themselves in the Minecraft world each had their own problems that were implied would be solved there (though what some of those problems even were was unclear). However, from the time they entered the portal to when they exited, nothing happened that would cause those problems to magically resolve.
The only scrap of change I saw was in Garett as he found similarities with Steve, but even that seemed to be because he was onscreen for slightly longer than the rest of the cast.
In the end (or Overworld in this case), the best way I can describe “A Minecraft Movie” is that it is certainly an experience. I don’t know if it was a good or bad experience, but going into it with memes, memories, and zero expectations whatsoever got me exactly the one I wanted.
