A Minecraft Movie

The film’s anarchy might reflect a lot of younger players’ first experience with Minecraft, where destruction can be just as fun as creation. Missing on the big screen, meanwhile, is the odd, remote atmosphere that drew me in.

“A Minecraft Movie” is quirky and goofy enough to make one wish it held together better overall, but it’s also a likable venture.

Jack Black and Jason Momoa together, they're okay; so it's perfectly unremarkable.

It’s got enough personality to make me wish that Hess had had a still freer hand... Don’t mistake my curiosity for enthusiasm. I can’t recommend that anyone see A Minecraft Movie, not even a child.

Jared Hess directed Napoleon Dynamite. This movie is as if Napoleon Dynamite directed it, not Jared.

For a wildly imaginative world-building project, the film is mostly ghastly to look at... if the possibilities of this world are endless, why does it all devolve into violent, ugly, boring warfare?

...this film is also a kind of homage to The Wizard of Oz (1939), which is also about a character who gets sucked into a magical land and has to find her way home.

I was surprised at how funny it got, which led me to fall for numerous jokes that caught me off-guard, but would sometimes feel intense dread as Black kept singing, and the climax of this entire non-event is a beam that opens a portal in the sky.

A movie that is guilty of all video game adaptation sins... but, thankfully, Jack Black and Jason Momoa attempt to save the day.

A joyless, clumsy mess that does nothing to capture the magic of the phenomenon it’s based on. The film frequently confuses wacky antics for comedy and pop culture game references for story.