There’s something really unique when an entire theater yells “Chicken jockey!” in sync with Jack Black, followed immediately by loud cheering and clapping. The long-awaited A Minecraft Movie was 100 minutes of Jack Black announcing Minecraft items, which made for the most surreal and enjoyable theater experience ever.
A Minecraft Movie, directed by Jared Hess and including stars like Jack Black, Jason Momoa, and Emma Myers, has become an instant classic in the film industry. Not because it’s a good movie: objectively, the movie is bad. It has poor character development, an underdeveloped story, and weird scene jumps. The movie was essentially just Jumanji (which also stars Jack Black) but in the Minecraft world and it felt abrupt. It’s obvious that the directors did not take themselves seriously during filming. However, that’s why the movie was great. It’s one of those movies that’s hilariously bad, and therefore still enjoyable to watch.
When the first teaser was released in September, the movie gained criticism online for its unexpected usage of live-action —particularly how certain aspects were adapted into film— and its poor costume design. The animals from the movie looked freakish, Jason Momoa was wearing a hot pink jacket, Danielle Brooks was in an outlandish orange and purple jumpsuit, and Jack Black was wearing jeans and a light blue t-shirt.
The movie earned more criticism when the first official trailer was released in November with many calling it ridiculous, and questioning why the movie wasn’t animated like other video game adaptations such as The Super Mario Bros. In an interview with director Hess and producer Torfi Frans Ólafsson, he was asked the same question, and he responded that he would “rather than do something that has been done before with animation, create something that has never been seen before. There are a lot of YouTubers who are able to create really cool animated stuff very easily, but not a lot of people that could create something this big in live action.”
As the days went by, the movie fell out of the zeitgeist until the final trailer was released in March and it took the internet by storm. People went crazy about how ridiculously Jack Black was pronouncing items from the game like “flint and steel,” and “the nether,” and memes surrounding the trailer went viral. Suddenly, hype was building around the movie, and all negative feelings about the movie turned into an ironic declaration of “this movie is going to be peak cinema.”
The theater experience was surreal, it was the most fun you could ever have watching a movie. Internet meme culture glorified certain moments in the trailer, and it became a trend to cheer, yell, and clap whenever Jack Black said anything. That’s what made this movie so great, half of the movie was just cheering and laughing with your friends.
The movie itself was funny, and minus the animals, visually stunning. Before the release, the expectation of how the world was going to look was incredibly high. After all, Minecraft is the second best-selling video game, and its community is one of the largest in gaming with over 170 million monthly players. However, Hess managed to bring incredible detail with the adaptation. Every prop was made out of cubes, and the world looked beautiful. Every item from the game, like the swords and armor, looked exactly like what you would imagine if Minecraft was real life.
Overall, A Minecraft Movie was really fun to watch if you look past the plot holes and poor character writing. It’s visually pleasing, funny and a dream come true if you’re a big Minecraft fan. The movie was rumored for years, but now it’s finally here and ready for you to gather a bunch of friends, settle down for a good movie night, and go crazy during the Chicken Jockey scene.
