Memes Drives Iconic Status of “A Minecraft Movie”

WARNING: Massive Spoilers for “A Minecraft Movie”

Ever since the release of “Super Mario Bros.” in 1985, video games have played a pivotal role in the entertainment space as a standalone category. However, there has been a recent trend in the movie industry, of making film adaptations of popular video games franchises. Some of the most successful recent examples of video game film adaptations are Illumination’s “Super Mario Bros” movie, Paramount’s “Sonic The Hedgehog” trilogy, and Blumhouse Productions’ “Five Nights at Freddy’s” movie.

“Minecraft,” one of the most influential and relevant games of all time, has become the most recent video game to take part in the film adaptation trend with the release of “A Minecraft Movie.” First released in May 2009, “Minecraft” started out as a small sandbox game, only gaining more and more popularity as the game continued being updated. Upon its release, “A Minecraft Movie” quickly became a meme on social media with several quotes from the movie such as “I am Steve” and “Chicken Jockey” gaining quite a bit of popularity.

“A Minecraft Movie,” directed by Jared Hess, was released on April 4th with chaotic audience reactions. The movie begins with Steve, played by Jack Black, discovering a crystal and describing the world of Minecraft as a utopia where all of your wildest desires can come true. Steve then visits an alternate dimension known as The Nether, quickly being imprisoned by Malgosha, an evil animated pig voiced by Rachel House.

The story then cuts to Garrett, played by Jason Momoa, earning his title of “The Garbage Man” through his undefeated championship title — until he gets an eviction notice. After that, the movie moves on to the story of Henry, played by Sebastian Hansen, and Natalie, played by Emma Myers: two siblings who lost their mother.

After getting both himself and Natalie in trouble, Henry visits Garrett and discovers a crystal that Garrett thought was a gaming console, but is actually a gateway to the Minecraft world. Natalie, alongside her neighbor Dawn, played by Danielle Brooks, eventually meet up with Henry and Gerrett and enter a portal taking them to the overworld of Minecraft.

The group then encounters Steve, who explains that, because the earth crystal was damaged, the group cannot return home until the crystal is replaced. In order to get another crystal, though, the group has to venture into an area called the Woodland Mansion. Steve then takes the group on a tour through the village he made. When Malgosha suspects Steve may have gone rogue, she sends General Chungus, the leader of the pigland army, voiced by Jared Hess, and her army to ambush Steve and prevent him from getting the crystal.

Through their hardships, Steve, Henry and Garrett retrieve the earth crystal from the Woodland Mansion, only for the orb of dominance to be stolen by Malgosha and used to spread her army from the Nether into the Minecraft overworld. The group eventually reconvines to devise a plan to stop Malgosha’s army and retrieve the crystal.

With Malgosha’s army defeated, Steve and the rest of the group go back to the real world and continue their lives as normal.
From when the film started, practically the entire audience shouted the list of lines that have become memes, ranging from the more common ones such as “Flint and Steel” to more obscure ones such as “Diamond armor, full set!”

Some things that I liked about the movie were the lines of characters such as Steve, Garrett, and General Chungus, as well as the movie respecting the original source material for a lot of ideas that came from the game. A few things that I did not particularly enjoy about the movie were that, besides Steve and Garrett, many of the characters felt somewhat lackluster and underdeveloped.

Overall, “A Minecraft Movie” was an incredibly fun theatre experience, with the movie itself being a simple yet humorous portrayal of a well known and beloved video game.