When I first found out Mojang was making a Minecraft movie, I was six, playing a Google Play Store ripoff of Minecraft on my tablet. Now I’m fifteen, watching “A Minecraft Movie” in cinemas, and playing Minecraft on my PC and laptop.
Yeah, there’s definitely a difference here.
I remember the Minecraft renaissance: Captainsparklez parody songs, DanTDM mod showcases, CrazyCraft, Story Mode (please come back), you name it. I was also there for the Dream SMP, and the rise of Minecraft roleplay. I’ve started and been in countless SMPs, including some owned by… let’s just call them controversial YouTubers.
Most of Gen Z has had the same experience I did. If you were to ask around, a very large amount of people my age would recount the same experiences — songs like “Revenge,” Dream SMP, etc. According to a survey by Statista, 71% of respondents from Gen Z were fans of Minecraft. It’s clear that Minecraft is more than just a game — it’s a core memory for our entire generation.
Originally slated for release in 2019, “A Minecraft Movie” was announced in 2016 by Mojang Studios. For seven years, the film was passed around to various producers, writers, and directors, until its 2025 release date was announced. “A Minecraft Movie” features A-list actors Jason Momoa, Jack Black, and Jennifer Coolidge, “Wednesday” star Emma Myers, “Orange Is The New Black” star Danielle Brooks, and newcomer Sebastian Eugene Hansen.
With all that history and emotional baggage, the movie had a lot to live up to — surprisingly, it delivers in more ways than one. Let’s talk about what works (and what doesn’t).
We’ll start with a quick background: the movie focuses on young Henry (played by Hansen) feeling out of place in his Midwest town. Henry, his sister (Myers), a real estate agent (Brooks), and a washed-out gaming champion (Momoa) are transported to an alternate dimension titled the Overworld, inhabited by a human named Steve (Black). The group works to defeat Malgosha, a piglin tyrant, and eventually return to the human world.
Allow me to put it bluntly: this, so far, is the worst movie of 2025.
If you haven’t seen the movie spoilers are beyond this point!
The movie began so unnoticeably that my girlfriend wasn’t even aware it started. The main character Steve gives a monologue about how “as a child, I yearned for the mines,” as the audience watches a terribly edited montage of Steve’s experiences in the Overworld. We all love Jack Black, but this performance was a little much.
The entire movie is terribly edited, actually. Green screen is blatantly obvious throughout most of the scenes, making the majority of it look straight out of “Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over.” Unlike “Spy Kids,” however, “A Minecraft Movie” spent all of its budget on game adaptation movie star Jack Black, and unfortunately, its audience (including me), is now old enough to realize CGI can be bad. Even I could do better editing by taking a PNG of Jack Black and putting it onto a picture of the Temple of Notch!
Not only that, the plot is just lacking. With a runtime of one hour and 41 minutes, I didn’t expect to receive much, but the pacing is so uneven — slow where it should run faster, and frantic when it should breathe. Major plot points, such as Steve’s reasons for coming to the Overworld and Henry’s disconnection from his peers, are sorely underdeveloped. That being said, there are flickers of something deeper, especially in the first act of the movie, but they’re buried so far under generic dialogue and surface-level stakes that they may as well not even be there.
I know that it’s bad and simple on purpose, and I know that it was the tone of the movie. But through a film critic’s perspective, that just means it’s bad. Minecraft Story Mode is much better at being funny, showing personality, and having a well-developed, interesting storyline. There’s something about the game being better than the movie that just doesn’t make sense to me.
I suppose the writers’ intentions were to simply have a “memeable” script. Most of the humor in the movie is performative and corny, with a cartoonish tone. This includes scenes such as: when Jack Black enters as Steve, announcing: “I… am Steve,” when a zombie drops out of the ceiling and Steve says “Chicken Jockey,” when Steve says the villagers “love crushin’ loaf,” and when Steve announces his actions, like “Flint and steel!”. They definitely succeeded in that aspect, but they sacrificed being able to have a good tone throughout the movie.
The actual writing of the script is a big part of why this movie fails. Already having a lack of development with all of its characters, the women of the movie get just shy of 20 minutes on-screen, and when they do get screentime, they are portrayed as weak, overly emotional, and frail. Dawn (Brooks) is essentially the stereotypical angry Black woman, while Natalie (Meyers) is nothing more than a protective older sister. One of the only passable scenes of the movie is between the two women, when they talk about motherhood and growing up. The two characters have little to no plot significance; all they do is build a house and nurse Steve back to health.
Several social media users noted this. User @alexisisiguess on TikTok says that they were “so disappointed in the blatant sexism in the Minecraft movie,” while user @kiaraxrobinson says “Younger me would’ve been so sad to know all the girls did in the Minecraft movie was make a hut.”
That being said, it wasn’t all terrible. Despite the 577 words I spent insulting it, there wasn’t a single moment during the movie that I wasn’t smiling.
Before opening weekend, as more teasers were released, sped up clips of Jack Black’s voice were “memed” and sensationalized through TikTok and Instagram Reels. These clips were used so much they were branded as “brainrot,” and I couldn’t (and still can’t) stop hearing the endless “chicken jockey” or “flint and steel” ringing around my head. It’s hilarious.
While watching, every time we’d hear a popular sound bite of Steve, I’d start clapping, and the rest of the theater would join in — most notably, when Steve said “chicken jockey.”
With most of the theater being Gen Z or young millennials, the speechless connection between us Minecraft fans was emotional, to say the least.
The tributes to Gen Z childhood don’t stop there. At the beginning of the movie, several Minecraft YouTubers (MCYTs) made cameos, including DanTDM, Aphmau, Mumbo Jumbo, and LDShadowLady. Jens “Jeb” Bergensten, lead developer of Minecraft, cameos as a waiter.
Also, I have to admit: the silliness of A Minecraft Movie is what gives it its charm. Yes, it’s bad, but it’s bad in a way that ends up working for it (kind of like Dad Jokes). Everything that wrong with it I just said somehow makes it feel like a fever dream version of the game we grew up on. That absurdity, while detrimental to the film’s quality, is what made it entertaining — especially for those in the audience who came for the chaos, not the coherence.
My favorite thing from the film, however, was a five second long scene.
Steve is guiding his group through Midport Village, and Henry points out a pig wearing a crown, saying “Is that some sort of king?”
Steve responds: “No, that’s a legend.”
I immediately started clapping.
This is a reference to Technoblade, a famous Minecraft Youtuber who succumbed to cancer at age 23. He began uploading videos in 2013 and gained a cult following for his commentary, humor, and technical mastery of the game. Technoblade became especially known through his involvement in Minecraft Monday, Hypixel’s Blitz Survival Games, and later, the Dream SMP — where his storytelling shaped its elaborate lore.
On June 30, 2022, Technoblade posted a video titled “so long nerds,” where his father announced his death, and on that day I cried for around four hours.
He made us laugh, he made us think, and for many of us, he made Minecraft feel like home. I still miss him.
I’ve said it so many times: “A Minecraft Movie” isn’t good — not by any technical or narrative standard. But even if it messed up the landing, I can’t deny that sitting in that theater made me feel something. Minecraft, as a concept, deserves a better film. There is so much more; so much depth in the game that could have been covered.
When you slay the Ender Dragon (a key point of Minecraft not mentioned in the movie) and enter the portal, you read a poem.
Written by Julien Gough, it’s a conversation between two mysterious voices (often interpreted as beings or creators). They discuss the player’s journey, growth, and consciousness.
In the end, the voices thank the player and encourage them to return to the game — to keep creating, dreaming, and playing.
It’s a driving force in my life. I go back and read the End Poem when I’m feeling down, when I’m feeling happy, when I’m feeling angry, or whenever I’m feeling anything. It means the world to me and so many others worldwide.
“A Minecraft Movie,” ironically, lacked the creativity that inspires people like me. Despite the smiles and laughter, it was just another cash grab game adaptation starring Jack Black (see Borderlands). The only creativity we see is Steve’s, when he’s building the world he leaves, and Henry’s, when he builds a jetpack and uses his intrinsic talents to sketch plans to save the Overworld.
But what drives this force? What inspires them? Why are these characters left one-dimensional? These may be asked, but nonetheless, they are questions that will never be answered.
So yes, it didn’t live up to the legacy of the game it was based on. But it reminded me of what Minecraft has always meant to me and so many others: the reality is that it’s not just the game that means a lot to us — it’s the memories, the people, the hours spent building something that mattered to us. While watching it, I realized I still felt that spark — the same one I felt holding my tablet at six years old, or what I felt playing SMPs with friends long gone.
But, maybe that’s enough. Maybe that’s what Minecraft has always been: imperfect, limitless, and deeply ours.
