Laughing at A Minecraft Movie — not with it

For any fans of the popular video game Minecraft, the long-awaited film adaptation, A Minecraft Movie (2025), is not the interpretation you were hoping for.

This film truly baffled me, making me concerned for the future of cinema as a whole. Directed by Napoleon Dynamite‘s Jared Hess and starring Jack Black and Jason Momoa, the movie has all the right ingredients — at least on paper. However, this movie also features poor dialogue, shallow and unnecessary side characters, and an overload of CGI — defeating the whole purpose of a “live action” adaptation.

This film has produced several popular memes across social media, taken from trailers and clips released online before the film. So much so, that immense (and ironic) hype built up for the movie, especially for specific one-liners and name drops delivered by Jack Black. Videos online show theaters erupting into applause and yelling during these sneak-peaked scenes, similar to moments captured during the theatrical release of Avengers: Endgame, which is the second highest-grossing movie of all time.

Due to these memes, A Minecraft Movie has already earned double its $150 million budget in the opening weekend alone- which is insane for this goofy, PG-rated video game adaptation. The memeification also creates distracting and annoying movie theater etiquette, which is already a problem. I predict for there to be a major drop in ticket sales after the first two weeks once the TikTok trend dies out. 

This social media hype for movies is fun to see, but also will most likely have terrible implications on the future of movie-making. Bad dialogue that can be clipped into 2 second moment memes sells tickets, raising the inevitability of its popularity. I argue that this is bad for our society. As humans, we should create good art for the sake of consuming good art. Just because this movie is aimed at kids does not mean it has to be shallow. Pixar films have long proven the ability to portray mature topics and translate them into easy, beautiful and inspiring messages for younger audiences. I would’ve hoped that a film adaptation of Minecraft — especially given its audience and reach — would have been more attentive and inspiring, instead of immature and cheesy. 

However, the positive aspects of this film can’t be ignored. The chemistry between Black and Momoa is great, with mild jokes and dialogue becoming even more funny by deliverance and appearance. I won’t lie, I laughed a lot during this film, both ironically and unironically. Black took a big lead in this project, even creating some original music for the film that’s still stuck in my head days after viewing. His continued enthusiasm across filming, promotion and post-release is very admirable- a skill many actors could learn from him.

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Despite the good parts and social impact, there is still a lot that I did not enjoy about this film. A few major characters were not very fleshed out, leading me to forget their names by the end of the film. The character development was hindered further by the heavy use of CGI in the latter part of the story. After they leave the real world and enter the Minecraft world, dubbed the “Overworld,” the entire environment along with nearly every single object in it, is not real. Making it obvious that the actors were uncomfortable being unable to interact and move around the locations. 

In my opinion, the movie should have an animation instead to avoid heavy CGI and the pitfalls that come with it. While the message of the film promoted creativity and exploration, it lacked in the animation department. I applaud A Minecraft Movie for trying, but they should’ve taken notes from The Super Mario Bros. Movie or Amazon Prime’s Secret Level. 

Overall, I do not think this is a good movie, but I had a great time, and you probably will, too — if you like TikTok memes and fun, loud theater experiences. This could be seen as the death of cinema or a dumb social media joke, but sometimes we all need a movie to laugh at for one reason or another. This is most definitely a movie to see in the theaters before the hype and social phenomenon is over. I recommend the experience, not the film.