Steve is an unhappy guy who was once happy. After being unhappy a long time ago, now he hopes to be happy again.
Is that confusing? OK, let me try to put this in story form.
Ahem.
Some kids dream of becoming a sports star or a fireman. Steve dreamed of swinging a pickaxe in a mine. (Hey, don’t judge.) Dirt, rocks, digging and discovery were the dreams that lulled him to sleep at night.
But kids and mines don’t mix for some reason.
Later in life though, Steve slipped past mining security to fulfill his grit-filled fantasy. He swung his axe. He dug. And he discovered. In fact, Steve found a glowing cube-like orb. (Yeah, I know cubes and orbs are totally different. But it was what it was.)
This orb opened a portal to a strange, blocky place where Steve could dig, roam, and build to his heart’s content. He called it the Overworld. It was also a place where monsters appeared at night (which happens like every 20 minutes or so).
Steve loved it all.
He loved it, that is, until he accidentally built a gateway (as you do) to the Nether.
This dark place is ruled by an evil Piglin Mage named Queen Malgosha. She loathes creativity, but she loves destruction and gold. And she also instantly loves Steve’s portal-creating orb. Thoughts of the chaos she could cause with it lulled her to sleep at night.
So Malgosha decides to imprison Steve and steal her cubey heart’s desire. But Steve sends his pet wolf off to hide the orb under his waterbed back in the real world. And now he waits, unhappy, in a Piglin prison.
That is where our story begins.
From there, it also involves a goofy former gaming champion, Garrett, who never really outgrew his ‘80s roots; a bullied schoolboy named Henry; Henry’s put-upon older sister, Natalie; and their realtor, Dawn.
After rediscovering Steve’s cubey orb thingee, this unlikely crew all go to Overworld to clash with Malgosha, Steve and about a gazillion Piglin warriors.
Man, storytelling is hard!
Overworld is a place of creativity. You can almost magically build things there from blocks of environmental materials and excavated minerals. We don’t see much of that actually happen in the storyline, but that ability is the reason that both Steve and teen Henry love the place.
Ultimately, though, they both decide to return to the real world to explore their creative abilities. (Encouraging young viewers to invest their creative energies in the world around them and not just in make-believe and fantasy.) Steve crystalizes that thought by saying, “Turns out that if you’re brave enough, you can make the real world into your Overworld.”
We also see people defending one another and stepping into perilous situations to save someone else.
We’re never told what the strange Overworld and Nether dimensions actually are. But the two-piece “Orb of Dominance” contains some form of unexplained magic.
In Overworld, for that matter, people can almost magically make building materials appear. And defeated characters puff out of existence when stabbed or struck (more on that in Violent Content). Also, at night creepy creatures roam the land and attack people. Zombies are a part of that mix as well.
The Nether, on the other hand, is a dark, barren and burning place that gives the impression of being an almost demonic landscape. In fact, Steve calls it a “hellhole.”
Garrett uses the Spanish phrase “vaya con Dios” (go with God) but interprets it as meaning something about parting as friends and brothers.
Vice Principal Marlene at Henry’s school rattles on inappropriately to him about her divorce. And that’s used to set up a running gag later on. Marlene hits an Overland villager—who slipped into the real world—with her car. This character cannot talk, but she takes him to dinner, believing that they have a great connection. Marlene flirts with him and invites him back to her house for “dessert.” It’s then implied that they’ve been intimate. And the vice principal announces their upcoming nuptials.
Marlene also meets Garrett, who’s masquerading as Henry’s uncle, and she recognizes him from his famous days when he was nicknamed The Garbageman. “You can bag me up and take me to the curb anytime,” she coos in his direction.
Once Garrett and crew discover and rescue Steve, an all-out war is unleashed by Mage Queen Malgosha. She sends out hundreds of Piglin warriors and Great Pig generals who beat up Overworld villagers and slash at Steve, Garrett and the others. Balloon-like creatures launch huge fireballs that explode against buildings, towers, bridges, various mountainsides and the like.
Garrett faces off against large creatures and small, including the huge Piglin generals and a tiny chicken-riding zombie. He’s repeatedly thumped around and beaten.
One of the more disturbing elements of the battles happen when Piglins are stabbed or slashed and end up as slabs of meat or pork chops impaled by a knife or sword. It’s perhaps supposed to be funny, but it’s actually surprisingly grim.
Huge tarantula-riding skeletons are smashed to bits. Human-like creatures also have their arms ripped off. Some explode when hit. And the Piglins, when hit by sunlight, sometimes burst into flames.
A blob of lava gets dropped onto a live chicken, instantly turning it into a roast chicken that people rip into and eat. Some combatants get hit in the crotch. An entire farm full of Creepers erupts in a mass explosion. Pink sheep are attacked and have their colored wool ripped off by the fistful.
We hear a litany of mildly rude and crude language scattered throughout this pic. These words might not all technically qualify as profane, but they’re certainly not the kinds of phrases you’d want repeated by your children at the dinner table. They include: multiple uses of “h—,” “dumba–,” “frickin’,” “heck,” “bullcrap,” “screw it,” “crap,” “shut up,” “dang it” and “booger face.” Someone also exclaims, “Son of a biscuit!” and calls another character “Captain Buttcrack!”
God’s name is misused several times.
None.
There are several references to butts and other potty-humor nods. For instance, Garrett tells someone, “I will crack your cabeza like a walnut between my butt cheeks!” And Steve proclaims, “I hate to take a big, fat dump on your plans.” Etc.
Natalie buys her younger brother some body spray to wear for his first day at a new school. He notes that it smells like “banana bread and poo.” People lie. And some bullies shove people around and sabotage Henry’s invention, which then destroys a large company mascot.
There will surely be an audience for this goofy, fever dream of a pic.
I mean, any movie that sets Jack Black loose to sing, unleash madcap improv and bellow at the sky—beard and graying mane blowing in the breeze—will draw a crowd. And then when you throw in Jason Mamoa playing against type and being comically pummeled by a little chicken rider and other beasties, you’re bound to please a few quirk-loving critics.
But is this a gleaming, blocky castle of fun that’s built for little kids and their families? Naaaah!
I mean even pure fans of the Minecraft game will likely walk away a little disappointed. Sure, the characters we meet repeatedly reference the incredible creative opportunities in the strange, cubey Overworld. (And that’s certainly the heart and soul of the Minecraft game this pic is based on.) But other than a colorful aesthetic, there’s very little creativity on display here.
There’s no adventure, no discovery, no treasure and no real block-building joy that a fan of the game would expect. Instead, we get a lot of monster bashing, wacky histrionics and fan-service bits. It’s loud, chaotic and silly.
Now, that high-energy silliness works sometimes. But it’s often the adult-geared variety that makes this pic problematic for kids. The language is sometimes edgy (especially for a PG-rated film), the violence can be a bit much, and the jokes lean heavily toward the adult humor side—such as a running gag involving a divorced vice principal’s implied sexual affair.
Yes, there is a small encouragement at the movie’s end to go find your creative outlet in real life and to step away from the make-believe of a game world. That’s good. But it kinda feels tagged on.
I won’t say this film is destined to be sent to the darkest pits of the Nether. But it won’t be winning any gaming movie of the year awards, either.
Oh, and if you go in hoping for a Return to Title Screen button you can push, you’re out of luck. Shutting your brain off is the only option.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
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