‘A Minecraft Movie’ is bizarre fun

The theater was suffused with a feeling of unbearable anticipation. A quiet murmur rumbled throughout the audience — could this be it? Could this be the moment we’ve been waiting for? The chicken is right there; surely it’s almost time. 

The anticipation only increased when the on-screen box above the chicken’s head opened, releasing a vicious, green cubic child onto the chicken’s back. Finally, after what felt like a billion years, the film cut to an angle that was all too familiar. Jack Black paused for a split second before he delivered the most iconic line of his career.

I’m not actually sure if Black said the line. For all I know, the audio could’ve been muted for those three seconds. It didn’t matter; all I could hear was a chorus of voices screaming “CHICKEN JOCKEY” at a volume that probably woke every sleeping child in a three-mile radius.

That anecdote sums up what it was like to watch “A Minecraft Movie” in a packed cinema on its opening weekend. It was a feverish, moderately deranged communal experience that greatly enhanced my enjoyment of the movie itself.

I have never shied away from deriding highly successful films, criticizing poor craftsmanship and lazy narrative choices, so it may come as a surprise to read that I actually enjoyed “A Minecraft Movie.”

I don’t think it’s exceptionally good — it’s certainly not great — but it’s perfectly agreeable in a manner that’s been conspicuously absent from blockbuster films in recent years. Director Jared Hess, who is also one of the movie’s many credited writers, made his name with low-budget comedies like “Napoleon Dynamite” and “Nacho Libre,” and some of that sensibility carries over to his “Minecraft” adaptation.

Where most video game adaptations are either condescending or slavishly reverent to their source material, Hess creates a balance. The movie takes “Minecraft” as a concept very seriously. There are no sarcastic jokes about how dumb it is that everything is a cube nor any belittling of the outlandish designs that characterize the game’s characters and environments.

However, the movie isn’t a self-satisfied attempt to validate the insistences of hypothetical fans who hold the game franchise as the high point of modern culture. Hess, his cast and crew aren’t afraid to make humor out of the weirdness inherent to “Minecraft.”

Jason Momoa’s character, a one-time gaming legend known as “The Garbage Man,” is a surprising standout. He considers himself an ultracompetent gamer with an inherent ability to master any video game, and the film earns quite a few laughs from exposing his ridiculous incompetence.

Black, who plays the blank-slate “Minecraft” player surrogate Steve, is also pretty good. Much has been made of his bizarre line reads, which largely see him dramatically declaiming the names of various “Minecraft” objects — flint and steel, ender pearl, the Nether and of course chicken jockey.

Black maintains this overdramatic performance style throughout the film, which is diverting, if sometimes exhausting. The movie is tonally similar to 2000s comedies like “School of Rock” and the aforementioned “Nacho Libre” that made Black a household name.

The most surprising thing about “A Minecraft Movie,” for me, was how many jokes I actually laughed at. There’s plenty of silly, slapstick comedy, and some of the one-liners are surprisingly funny. The actors, especially Momoa and Jennifer Coolidge, fully commit to their deeply odd and ridiculous performances.

I do think there’s a lot of room for improvement. I was impressed by the amount of practical effects that were used, but I think the integration between live-action and digital elements could’ve been a lot better. The green screen shots in particular were very noticeable and looked cheap, a problem that easily could’ve been solved with better lighting.

Similarly, the scenes set in the real world were visually dull and washed out. I could’ve forgiven this as a stylistic choice to distinguish the two realms, had the scenes in the world of “Minecraft” not had similar issues. 

The script also isn’t great, humor notwithstanding. The movie felt disorganized with odd pacing that was sometimes disorienting. The characters and themes also felt underdeveloped, even by the standards of a children’s movie. It’s not difficult to follow, though, and it reasonably hits all its emotional beats.

Overall, “A Minecraft Movie” feels like a throwback to the 2000s family movies I grew up watching. It appeals to all four quadrants of the audience to use industry parlance by providing generally competent craftsmanship in an accessible package. It doesn’t feel overly childish or inside baseball, like the “Sonic” or “Mario” movies, but it’s not some self-serious slog.

“A Minecraft Movie” is a far cry from the muddled messes we’re used to seeing from Marvel or “Jurassic World” or whatever, which feel less like movies and more like compilations of producer notes. It made me laugh, so it’s a successful comedy, and it made me want to play “Minecraft,” so it’s a successful advertisement. The kids in the theater seemed to be enjoying it, so I’d definitely recommend it for its intended audience.