Quick Synopsis: A mysterious portal pulls four misfits into the Overworld, a bizarre, cubic wonderland that thrives on imagination. To get back home, they’ll have to master the terrain while embarking on a magical quest with an unexpected crafter named Steve.
I will preface this review by pointing out that I’ve never played Minecraft. Plus, despite spending a lot of my time online, I don’t really integrate myself with online culture; I’m not really someone who pays attention to trends and memes, etc. I’m not actively opposed to them, I just don’t really give a shit. Essentially, I view most TikTok trends not with disdain, but with boredom. That’s pretty much how I viewed A Minecraft Movie (AMM, pronounced aaaaaaaaaaaaarm for no reason whatsoever except that I want to pronounce it that way). I get what they were going for, but it didn’t appeal to me.
Part of it may be that I’m getting slightly bored of Jack Blacks shtick now. Dear Santa and Borderlands, I have pushed him out of the good graces portion of my brain, and I’m beginning to realise how similar all of his performances have been lately, like he’s coasting. It doesn’t help that I couldn’t get past the notion that it might have made more sense if he and Momoa swapped roles. You have two characters; one is a former video game champion with no prospects and tries to coast on his charm, reliving his glory days through video games and metal music. Doesn’t it seem like Jack Black should play him? As it is, he plays the other adult character, but plays him exactly the same way he plays every character, which would have suited the aforementioned character better.
I was also puzzled by the opening. It establishes that Steve was a child who wanted to mine, a child who grew older and bored with life, then, as an adult, felt the yearning again and went back into the mine, finding himself transported to the Overworld. While there, he becomes a master baiter, expertly baiting a wolf to become his friend. More importantly, he builds a lot of cool shit, and pisses off the gold-obssesed leader of another dimension. Now, what became of the life of real-world Steve? Nobody cares. No mention of his workplace, wondering where his child went, no town legends about someone going missing. There’s not even much of a mention of how long he’s been gone. I’m going to do this a lot in this review (possibly), but compare it to Jumaji. Where he went missing as a child (which makes a lot more sense), this allowed the film a justification for him being so well-versed in the world. Jumanji also showed how that disappearance haunted the people left behind, which never happens here with Steve. I know there’s a possibility that this happened like that because “that’s how it happened in the game”, but it still feels odd, very first draft.
Generally, I was left feeling with a sense of boredom throughout, no more than at the end, where they do the traditional music montage with text showing what happened to everybody. Big issue: the song is kind of dull. It “rocks” with a small R, in much the same way Bryan Adams does. Actually, that’s unfair to Bryan Adams; it “rocks” in the same way as Sting does. Not asking for a piece of musical greatness that would echo through the ages, but at least make it so I can remember.
All of this hurts more because it is generally a likeable movie. Momoa is clearly having fun, Emma Myers is fine but not notable, and Jennifer Coolidge continues to be incredibly reliable, the type of performer you can give 5 minutes to, and they’ll be some of the most entertaining 5 minutes you’ll see. The visuals are fun, and the action scenes have a sense of logic to them that’s missing in a lot of similar films. Plus, there are some funny jokes and moments in there (a lot of them provided by Danielle Brooks, who’s one of the few people who seem suitably freaked out).
It really should be better, though. It’s ironic that a film about the importance of creativity should be so pedestrian and uninspiring. THAT’S my issue. The concept has potential, and the film never comes within eyesight of it.
Richard Linklater and animated dystopian science-fiction; not a combination even the stoners from Dazed and Confused would think of, let alone guess it would be one of the highlights of the genre; but this list is titled thus for a reason. Adapted from Phillip K Dicks novel, it depicts a group of drug addicts, formed of Robert Downy Jr, Woody Harrelson, and led 
by undercover cop Keanu Reeves in a totalitarian America, where the only thing they have more of than drugs is cameras: Big Brother is always watching. Linklater sticks very close to the text, adapting the films dark themes of drug abuse just as effectively as its constant bursts of dark and surreal humour. But what really makes this film something else, is that its rotoscoped (animation done over live-action footage), a style that not only makes it timeless, but adds a toxic physicality to the labyrinth of confusion and paranoia the story revels in; capturing imagery from the material like no live-action film ever could.
A 30’s set period dramedy, a love letter to the stage (which clearly inspires Linklater’s writing, though ironically he didn’t write this), and a personal favourite of mine: I find this film is unfairly overlooked as a Zac Effron vehicle (who fits the period like an old glove), as at the time he was in the heights of his High School Musical fame. But in actuality it’s a genuine showcase of his talents, as it is a delightfully charming and fascinating film that looks at the friendship between a young man with theatre dreams and a pre-Citizen Cane Orson Welles, as he and his famous Mercury troop put on their career making performance of Shakespear’s Julius Caesar.
Filmed over twelve years, from May 2002 to October 2013 (almost my own exact adolescence), using the same cast, Boyhood follows a boy and his broken family through his life, on their journeys to adulthood and everything else.
Troubled Productions 