A Minecraft Movie - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

Some movies are born out of a stroke of creative genius. Some movies are just born out of an actual stroke. While mining intellectual property isn’t new (just look at Batman in the mid-1960s), it seems like our modern era’s entertainment exists mainly to recycle and repack our favorite books, comics, cartoons, video games, and films. Speaking earnestly, nothing wrong with that. I love reexperiencing old favorites with a creative new spin, so long as there’s a purpose to the effort. Then you get something like A Minecraft Movie that aims to bring the gaming favorite a live-action spin, which works occasionally, stumbles frequently, but is still somewhat amusing in the end. 

Story? Sure, I guess there is something of a plot revolving around our favorite brick-bashing hero, Steve (Jack Black). Only now armed with Black’s full range of manic personality traits, Steve isn’t the silent hero of the adventure as he was in the games. And he’s no longer alone. Along for the ride are the extraneous humans, Henry (Sebastian Hansen), his sister Natalie (Emma Myers), the washed-up arcade-gaming legend Garret (Jason Momoa), and local realtor and mobile petting zoo proprietor Dawn (Danielle Brooks). Together, they go on an adventure to save the Overworld and stop the diabolical Malgosha (Rachel House). And Jennifer Coolidge gets to date a Villager named Nitwit.

I guess how I feel about A Minecraft Movie boils down to timing. I have a hunch that if this film had beaten the two Jumanji features (also starring Jack Black) to theaters, this film would have felt a little more unique, a little more exciting, and probably a little funnier. It also shares too many plot similarities to The Super Mario Bros. Movie, losing even more points on the originality scale. For better or worse, depending on your comedic proclivities, A Minecraft Movie is a big-budget Jared Hess film. Absurdist, nonsensical, random comedy and all. You’re either going to fall in the “this is not for me” camp or you’re going to enjoy it. I wager that it'll help if you're a fan of the games.

Part of me enjoyed A Minecraft Movie. The piece of me that loves the absurdist and random humor of Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre was very entertained. I never thought blowing up a potato chip factory could be funny, but I was laughing hysterically. But that was the only time I laughed that hard. I admit I thought this film was amusing, but I’ll be honest that most of it wasn’t for me. Part of that is because of the IP source. Minecraft as a game was never really on my radar; I never got into the culture of it. I only had any extensive exposure to it thanks to my nieces and their love of the YouTube playthrough videos. I went into the film with no expectations and came out feeling indifferent. 

Most of that ambivalence is because, outside of Jack Black, Jason Momoa, and the brief time we get with Jennifer Collidge, I just didn’t really care what happened. The plot is so paper-thin and of little importance that Danielle Brooks, Sebastian Hansen, and Emma Myers are left with story scraps to play with. It’s not their fault; they’re fine, their characters are just underwritten. The film is more interested in the universe and creatures of Minecraft, the deadpan, dopey jokes Memoa can sling, and all of the noises Jack Black can make. It’s fun for a few moments, visually arresting, and kids might love it (my boy didn’t, but others might). So yes, I laughed sporadically, enjoyed the visuals, but it’s not a film I’m likely to revisit under my own steam anytime soon.

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 
A Minecraft Movie builds to home video as a single-disc 4K UHD + Digital release from Warner Bros. and SDS. The film is pressed on a BD66 disc and housed in a standard black case with identical slipcover art. The disc loads to a static image main menu with basic navigation options.

While the story might not have gotten the care and attention it deserved, the visuals of this film are outright beautiful. Even if it’s mostly all CGI, I was impressed by how well these digital creations and the practical effects and production design pulled together with the cast. There’s a very appreciable sense of three-dimensional depth. Which is important considering we’re dealing with a universe full of cube creations, there are a lot of square dimensional creatures and buildings against our human actors. Details are clean and crisp, letting all of the human faces and features blend nicely into the practical and CG environments of Minecraft. The Dolby Vision/HDR10 grade certainly offers plenty of pop, this is a damned colorful film and primaries are lovely. When the darkness kicks in every 20 minutes or so and the zombies rise, the image gets some nice deep, dark shadows and inky black levels to exploit. Bitrate is strong, maintains a nice healthy average, but I do wonder if this film had been minted on a BD100 and let that bitrate open, if it’d look any better. Overall, an excellent-looking disc.

Kicking into the audio, the film’s visuals are matched with an exceptional Dolby Atmos audio track. It’s a big, loud video game movie, and the Atmos makes full use of the channel spread. Dialog, such as it is, is clean and clear without any issues. Front/Center channels may dominate much of the time, but there’s some great spread through the sides and rears. A lot of that spread hinges on how loud and active things get, but true to form for Jared Hess, the funniest pieces usually pay off in quiet - the result of a jetpack flying into a potato chip factory gave me the best laugh of the film. Following suit, the height channels are well utilized, lending a sense of space and weight to all of the world-building visuals while also delivering on some fun object-specific effects.

On the bonus features front, we get a few brief but informative featurettes to pick through. For what is likely to be one of the highest-grossing films of the year, I was a little surprised Warner Bros. didn’t stuff the disc with more weighty extras, but what’s here does inform fans about the production nicely, even if it’s all pretty short. 

• Building the World of Minecraft: Block Party (HD 14:18)
• Creepers, Zombies, and Endermen Oh My! (HD 13:17)
• A Minecraft Movie: Pixel Pals (HD 13:56)
• A Minecraft Movie: Block Beats (HD 9:05)
• Marline + Nitwit (HD 5:12)

Somehow, A Minecraft Movie required five credited writers to get to the point that we now have one of the highest-grossing films of the year dedicated to one of the most-played video games of all time. Jared Hess is an interesting talent who is out to entertain himself rather than a target audience. We’re just along for the ride. This film certainly found an audience at the box office, but I wasn’t the demographic it was made for. I found parts of it amusing; Jennifer Coolidge out to woo the escaped villager Nitwit was the highlight ongoing joke for me. The rest of the so-called plot felt like it was just going through the motions. Impressively realized blending practical puppets and CGI with our real actors, A Minecraft Movie isn’t for everyone. But it makes for a hell of a 4K release! If you loved the film, you’re in store for a lovely Dolby Vision transfer and a slick Atmos mix to match. Bonus features might not be lengthy, but they’re a well-cubed informative pack. At the end of the day, I’d say this one is Worth A Look