Photo // Jordan Sarver-Bontrager
I AM STEVE. My brother Ben (front) and I (back) of course had to cosplay Steve to see the Minecraft Movie.
By: Jordan Sarver-Bontrager
Media Writer
It’s Friday, April 3. My brother sends me a text.
“Jordan we are going to watch the Minecraft movie together.”
“F*ck. Alright.”
We stop by a store to grab blue t-shirts to dress as Steve, the main character and the face of “Minecraft” in general.
We arrive at the theater and multiple people recognize us as Steve. It was a pretty cool experience.
We sit down, the movie begins and I am pleased to report that the experience in the theater was peak. The movie itself wasn’t good, not at all, but I honestly don’t care that it was terrible. I imagine that this was a lot like going to see “Rocky Horror Picture Show” back in ye olden times. You’re not really there to see the movie, you’re there for the experience.
There were three standing ovations: one for “I am Steve” another for “Chicken Jockey!” and finally, a standing ovation for the ending of the movie. It was incredible. A 10/10 experience.
I do want to give this movie a proper review. It was bad, really bad, but in an enjoyable way. I don’t think I’d enjoy watching it on my own, though. The theater experience adds a lot.
The thing that stood out to me the most was the pacing. I found it to be the inverse of Michael Bay’s “Armageddon” wherein the first two acts pass like a breeze and the finale of the movie is dragged out for a long time. In “A Minecraft Movie” the pacing has us watching an entire hour of exposition, and then 40 minutes of the proper journey.
There are two distinct plotlines in this movie. The first sees our main crew getting trapped in the Overworld and having to traverse to the Woodland Mansion with Steve in order to leave, but there’s a snag as Piglins from “THE NETHER” try to stop Steve and the gang. The second plotline follows a Villager that escapes the Overworld and sparks a romance with Jennifer Coolidge after Jennifer runs him over with her car. This is a real movie.
The characters aren’t very good. There’s Natalie, who has no discernable personality traits. There’s Henry, Natalie’s younger brother who has a very “creative” mind. The worst of the bunch is Dawn, who encapsulates “lol random” millennial humor in a single character. She has a llama hanging out in her car because she’s quirky and random.
The two characters I enjoyed were Steve, played by Jack Black, and Garrett, played by Jason Momoa. For reasons that are beyond me, those two had this weird homoeroticism going on between them during the entire time they were on screen together. Their chemistry was great, and their characters were wildly entertaining. Both actors clearly loved their roles.
The references were pretty fun too. I liked the Technoblade tribute (deceased Minecraft YouTuber) and the character of General Chungus (the latter of which was unnecessary but caused an uproar of laughter in my theater).
Overall, I think this movie is quite bad. Terrible even. However, I think everyone should go see it for the experience of seeing it. Movie: 2/10, experience: 10/10.
