“In the Overworld, anything you can dream about, you can create,” said actor Jack Black in the opening line of the official trailer of Warner Brothers’ “A Minecraft Movie.” The Overworld refers to the hyper-realistic cascading landscape of cubes, filled with blockish animals. This is the land of Minecraft that users of the game are familiar with.
Black stars as Steve, the main user profile in the game, who also contributed musically to the film. One of the film’s original songs by Black is “I Feel Alive,” which features Foo Fighters lead singer and guitarist Dave Grohl on the drums, according to an interview with Vanity Magazine.
Joining Black is Jason Momoa as Garret the garbage man, Jennifer Coolidge as a school principal and Danielle Brooks as Dawn, with Emma Myers and Sebastian Hansen as siblings Natalie and Henry. These characters’ goals were to save the Overworld from the Nether—a place void of the joy and creativity that runs wild in the Overworld.
Freshman Clara Bragagnolo, a seasoned Minecraft player, is still on the fence about whether she will attend the movie.
“This film was quite unexpected news for me, before the first trailer came out, I had no idea it was coming out,” said Bragagnolo.
The live-action film’s extensive use of animation and special effects seems to be the sticking point.
Source: Instagram, @aminecraftmovie
“I do not have the highest expectations for the film. I would much rather prefer that it was an animated movie. Nevertheless, I believe it could still hold up as a regular comedy movie, and a relatively acceptable adaptation of the game, though nothing outstanding,” said Bragagnolo.
While the elements of design seem to be consistent with the three-dimensional block world of the video game, the storyline of the film is fresh, as the game itself lacks an underlying storyline, merely giving users the ability to create and survive in its fictional digital world.
“[In the game, Steve] never had any dialogues or specified story, he was simply the character you controlled in the game,” Bragagnolo said.
However, the film features Steve as an “expert crafter” who, together with his fellow misfits, must master the Overworld and protect it from the Nether, including fictional creatures such as “piglins” and zombies, according to a Rotten Tomatoes synopsis.
As far as Coolidge’s role, she plays a school principal who falls for a Minecraft creature that is pulled into the real world via a portal, which acts as a humorous subplot to the rest of the film.
Junior Grace Schramm, who has dabbled in Minecraft over the years, is hopeful for the future of video game-inspired films like this one.
“I think it’s going to be a good entryway to other game movies because it’s all pixels, so it’s a new way of looking at things,” said Schramm, referencing the game’s block-centered world design. “I feel like people wouldn’t know what to expect, which opens up so much for a new understanding and appreciation of Minecraft.”
As for the star-studded cast, Schramm thinks it will help bring the cube-shaped world to those unfamiliar with it. “If people see a movie with their favorite actors and it’s about a game that they are unfamiliar with, it would open up the movie to new audiences,” said Schramm.
While the SHU Community Theatre located in downtown Fairfield is not currently set to have any showings of the film, the AMC Marquis 16 movie theater in Trumbull has been showing the movie since its premiere on Friday, April 4.
