« A Minecraft Movie »: Almost a full disaster

Experior reviews as well as user and sales figures in the three-digit million range: « Minecraft » is considered the best-selling and one of the most influential computer games ever. Even « Tetris », the « Grand Theft Auto » series and « Super Mario Bros. » stand in the shadow of this so-called sandbox games, which serves as a kind of modular for creative players.

And even the leap into the education sector has succeeded in the game: « School makes ‘Minecraft’ a compulsory subject » the « picture » titled many years ago. “More than 40,000 school systems in 140 countries use Minecraft Education (The play -based learning platform, editor’s note)« To meet your educational goals, » says Education.minecraft.net. That sounds with regard to « A Minecraft Movie », the film to the game, but actually quite promising, or not?

Pigs from the underworld

But first of all for the plot of the film, which is roughly based on the content of the game: The creative Steve lands after being passed through a portal in the upper world that enables it to live out his ideas. He can let off steam in the almost completely made of cubes to your heart’s content, design them according to his wish.

If everything was basically great, there would be no piglets, angular pig creatures that make life hell. Above all, the bristly witch Malgosha (voice: Rachel House), who wants to transform his paradise into a dark empire.

Four outsiders rush to help: Garrett (Jason Momoa), Dawn (Danielle Brooks), Natalie (Emma Myers) and Henry (Sebastian Hansen). They take up the fight against pigs, zombies and all kinds of strange figures in order not only to save the Minecraft world, but also to find it back into real life.

The whole thing sounds almost conclusive. The five screenwriters involved have made every effort to squeeze out of the sandpit game as much as possible. But all in all, especially if you are not familiar with the Minecraft world, the story seems quite unbalanced.

The short introduction, which takes over the cult character Steve alias Jack Black, does not answer all the questions that arise that you would probably never face in a video game. And so the poor action ripples a little meaninglessly: basically the search for a powerful object is in the foreground, while the fight for creative freedom repeatedly resonates. There is a lot of collapsing and in between, game characters constantly appear (creeper, chicken rider, spider rider), which should at least ensure a smile for connoisseurs.

The graphic implementation for the canvas has succeeded in large parts once you disregard the villages: they seem to arise from a terrible horror film that can not only trigger nightmares in young children. At your sight, memories of AI experiments in the style of « So your favorite comic figure would look as a real person will be awake.

Black, Brooks and Myers convince

The human actors are honest to breathe life into the weak, only moderately stringent script, but this also only succeeds in places. After all, Jack Black inspires with his humorous way, and musically the US actor, who himself is often on stage, also sets accents. Danielle Brooks, known from the Netflix series « Orange is the New Black », and « Wednesday » star Emma Myers also turn out to be a stroke of luck.

On the other hand, the performance of muscleprotz Jason Momoa remains weak, who, despite the colorful costumes including Heidi-Klum hairstyle, can only reproduce the nerdy loose. Young actor Sebastian Hansen disappointed alike: he does not meet the requirements of his leading role at all. The effort in every scene is literally to look at.

Most laughs in the adult audience – if you dislike the weak scene in the credits – probably Jennifer Coolidge. As vice-school director Marlene, she has the laughs on her side. Will the young cinema goers get this too? Probably not: For the Alpha generation, the 63-year-old, who was once raised as a Stifler’s Mum, is a great stranger.