A Minecraft Movie (2025) Reviews: What Critics Said

Editorial note: This is a roundup of published criticism of A Minecraft Movie. Celluloid has not screened the film for this piece, and it carries no Celluloid rating. The critics are named and linked under Sources.

Is A Minecraft Movie worth watching?

Mostly no, according to the critics: A Minecraft Movie was widely judged a noisy, formulaic adaptation that wastes the game’s creative possibilities, although a minority found it a genuinely funny, good-natured family film. Even some detractors enjoyed flashes of director Jared Hess’s deadpan humour, and Jason Momoa and Jennifer Coolidge drew scattered praise. Jack Black’s broad performance and the garish digital world split opinion most sharply.

What is A Minecraft Movie about?

Four misfits, each struggling with ordinary problems, are suddenly pulled through a mysterious portal into the Overworld, a bizarre, cubic wonderland that thrives on imagination. To get home, they must learn to master this world while setting out on a quest alongside an unexpected expert crafter named Steve. Hess directs from a screenplay credited to Chris Galletta, Gavin James, Neil Widener, Hubbel Palmer and Chris Bowman. Jack Black plays Steve and Jason Momoa plays Garrett, with Sebastian Eugene Hansen, Emma Myers, Danielle Brooks and Jennifer Coolidge in support, and Rachel House voicing Malgosha. The film runs 101 minutes and was released in April 2025.

What critics praised

The warmest reviews came from critics who thought Hess’s sensibility won through. For RTÉ, Sarah McIntyre found the film a constant stream of laughs that succeeds by leaning into its own absurdity, with Black and Momoa throwing themselves into a competitive double act, Coolidge impressing as a vice principal and Jemaine Clement making a memorable cameo. She found real heart beneath the silliness, along with plenty of in-jokes for players. William Mullally of The National admitted he expected a failure and instead found the film charming and often laugh-out-loud funny. He credited Hess with a natural touch for children’s entertainment, likened the brightly and affectionately animated block world to a Jim Henson creation, and praised Coolidge’s comic timing.

Some of the sceptics also found things to like. Michael Ordoña of TheWrap enjoyed the awkward small-town warmth of the early scenes, thought Momoa effective as a washed-up gaming champion and singled out a wolf cub as the film’s best character. Jacob Oller of the AV Club felt Momoa handles the cartoonish tone more deftly than Black, and welcomed stray moments of silliness from Coolidge. In Empire, Dan Jolin allowed that the Overworld is rendered about as well as the game’s look permits and that Hess brings some of his Napoleon Dynamite quirkiness to the real-world sequences.

What critics disliked

The story was the chief complaint. Jolin found narrative and character development almost entirely absent, and argued that the film lacks the knowing wit that lifted other brand-based films such as The Lego Movie and Barbie. Oller saw a haphazard stack of stock plot devices, rushed so quickly that its emotional arcs barely register, and felt Hess drains the action scenes of energy. Ordoña called it a by-the-numbers hero’s journey with a patched-together script, functional dialogue and surprisingly unimaginative building designs for a film about building.

Black proved the most divisive element. McIntyre enjoyed his commitment, but Ordoña found his relentless mugging exhausting and out of step with the other actors, Jolin described his line readings as over-emphatic pantomime, and even Mullally, one of the film’s supporters, felt he relies on familiar shtick rather than creating a character. Several reviewers also thought the supporting players, including Brooks, were given little to work with.

The visuals were contested too. Where Mullally saw affectionate craftsmanship, Jolin found the film garish and relentlessly loud, Oller was put off by unsettling character designs, and Ordoña felt the human cast never seems grounded in the digital environments. McIntyre acknowledged that the frenzied pace and unrelenting silliness will not suit everyone.

Who is it for?

Several critics noted that the film is aimed squarely at children and players of the game, and its supporters thought it delivers for that audience. Adults hoping for the self-aware cleverness of the best toy and game adaptations were more likely to be disappointed. The film is rated PG in the US and the UK. Admirers of Hess’s earlier comedy Napoleon Dynamite may recognise his touch in the small-town scenes. It sits among the site’s family titles, with cast and streaming details on A Minecraft Movie’s page.

The critical verdict

The weight of critical opinion was negative. Most reviewers saw a chaotic, formulaic adaptation that squanders a famously open-ended game, rescued only in patches by Hess’s oddball comedy, Momoa and Coolidge. A smaller group found it a sweet, inventive and very funny family film, and TheWrap’s Ordoña conceded that it gives its target audience what it expects.