A Minecraft Movie

Jason Momoa and Jack Black

Jared Hess' A Minecraft Movie is pleasant and goofy with enough personal touches to keep me from getting grumpy about its wholehearted attempt to capture all cinema goers worldwide above the age of six. Jack Black and Jason Momoa are a good tag team green screen dance duo, but the rest of the cast, with the exception of Jennifer Coolidge, is superfluous, present only for targeted demographics. A phalanx of screenwriters has labored to craft a plot for a video game that had none. Results are, of course, mixed. I thought the villains of the piece, pixilated pigs in a Minecraft hellscape, were not very interesting. The last half hour of the film, in which the cast battles porcine hordes, lacks invention.

However, the first two thirds of the film is replete with the little touches that make Mr. Hess a gifted comic auteur. There are enough successful gags about potato products, pro wrestling, and Idaho to discern a personal touch in the midst of this corporate concoction. Hopefully, next time, Hess will get to direct a film wholly set in Idaho. The casting of Mr. Momoa as a video games maven stuck in the 1980s is a coup and Mr. Black is always welcome, especially when he gets to show off his vocal chops.