As soon as trailers were released for A Minecraft Movie, people started talking about how bad the film looked, criticizing everything,, from Jason Momoa’s bangs to Jack Black’s delivery of “I am… Steve!”.
Despite the complaints, A Minecraft Movie still managed to make a huge splash at the box office during its opening weekend, which is leaving some of the haters befuddled. Why is this movie succeeding when it’s so clearly terrible?
It’s For the Kids
The simplest answer is that the movie is simply made for kids. Though critics have lambasted Minecraft even before it came out in cinemas, people posting their reactions from watching the movie just seem to be amazed at how much kids enjoyed the movie, and they apparently loved all the references.
Kids have apparently been treating the film like a screening of Rocky Horror Picture Show and have been screaming at all the references that were being shown in the movie. It apparently got so bad that some theaters had to kick some people out of screenings because they were being too rowdy.
“Kids Deserve Good Movies Too”
Though some like to say that A Minecraft Movie is just plain dumb fun, there are some that say that kids also deserve the kind of ‘smart’ movies that adults can enjoy as well, but in Minecraft’s case, it does seem like the movie just decided to fill it up with references because they knew exactly which demographic they were marketing to.
That being the case, the movie’s reliance on references could age it pretty poorly:
On the other hand, it may also boil down to the critics not being aware of what kind of director Jared Hess is. For context, he’s the same guy behind cult favourites like Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre—so awkward humor is kind of his whole thing.
Besides the game references, A Minecraft Movie also has a lot of callbacks to Hess’ previous work, from the tater tots to Jack Black using his Eagle Powers to take out the Chicken Jockey. Even Jason Momoa does the iconic butt squeeze from Nacho Libre:
All in Good Fun
It’s not clear yet on how high A Minecraft Movie is going to reach at the box office, but for now, it does look like most of people who enjoy the film are hardcore fans of the game, as well as anyone who is familiar with Jared Hess body of work.
While it’s okay not to like the movie at all, there are a lot of reasons to understand why people would enjoy the movie and why it would be a success. Sure, it still had some ‘corporate slop’ elements to it, but Jack Black and Jason Momoa have been clear standouts for the film, and there’s still a lot to love about how silly it all is, from random bursts of song to Jennifer Coolidge falling in love with a villager.
With a sequel possibly happening, some fans are hoping that Hess add more things that are closer to his style of comedy. Though the movie did have some Hess signature elements, it still felt more like the studio's movie rather than Hess' more stylized work.
A Minecraft Movie is now showing in theaters.