A Minecraft movie was released in North America on April 4, 2025, and it quickly swept the continent. I watched the film with two other friends in Regal at Irvine Spectrum on Saturday, April 5, and it was a childhood fulfilled. The references, the jokes, and the silliness of it all spoke to Minecraft’s nature of creativity and going beyond our world, to transport us into a place of our imagination.
The movie does just that. It brings to the forefront key memories from the game and the geeky, nerdy parts of us that we all try to hide away. It reminds us that being young, or in Garrett Garrison’s (Jason Momoa) case, a deadbeat gamer, is nothing to be ashamed of, that our strangeness should be celebrated. This film is a shining star in the dwindling diversity of our media, as people of different body types and colors all get representation, as it is the childhood of most 2000s kids, and is still popular even today.
Minecraft has always been an inclusive community—a place to connect with friends and meet new ones. These themes are demonstrated well and thoroughly, even though they fall into almost every cliche in film writing, it is not meant to be the next Oppenheimer or even the next Barbie, because it is about the representation of the community of players all over the world that cherish this game for its freedom and connections like the reference to Technoblade, a Minecraft YouTuber who left us in 2022 due to complications with cancer, that resonated with the community with Steve’s (Jack Black) comment, “That’s a Legend” when his avatar showed up on the big screen.
The screenwriting is not meant to appease the critics, who rated the movie 48% on Rotten Tomatoes. It was meant for the kids and teens who grew up on the game, with wild imaginations and unlimited creativity. ShiXu (Gordon) Chen (10) thought that “it’s a fun and light-hearted movie, and it achieves that goal very well. What makes it better is the audience.” It is intended for the people who get goosebumps when they hear the A major 9th chord. Not only that, but the film also offered many new memes, such as Steve’s line “Chicken Jockey” for the chicken-riding baby zombie.
All in all, a Minecraft Movie is exactly what it should be, as a person who has been playing Minecraft since he was 4. It is packed with action, adventure, and the nonsensical nature of the game that so many Gen Z resonate with. Lance Low (11) thinks, “It was a phenomenal moment in my life. I will look back at it in 3 years to reminisce.”It is a movie that will go down in my heart as the one that completed my inner child, who always needed a place to explore, create,and build my dreams, mine, craft, and Minecraft.
