Video game adaptations had a dubious reputation for decades. Cucumbers like the “Super Mario Bros.”-film adaptation of 1993 or all films broken by Uwe Boll, such as “Alone in the Dark” or “Bloodrayne”, contributed to the fact that the canvas interpretations were even more likely to get a little better even when they started-and meanwhile not only is more open to the factual implementation, also that The audience understood that something really good can get around: “The Last of Us”, “The Super Mario Bros. Film” or “Arcane” are only a few positive examples of how implementations can work artistically (and can also take a lot of wounding).
With “Minecraft” a real gaming colossus has now been adapted for the large screen-after all, the block sand box is no less than the best-selling video game ever. Microsoft even leafed $ 2.5 billion (!) For the developer studio Mojang in 2014 to get the rights. A canvas implementation sounds after the next logical step. But there is a problem: “Minecraft” lives like hardly any other game from playful freedom. You can actively experience adventure or just build meditatively in front of you – just a narrative red thread, which is not obvious at first.
Madness in the square
Perhaps this very special challenge has also contributed to the fact that the Warner Bros studio. When filling the director's chair, an unusual path and thus a risk was taken: With the independent megahit “Napoleon Dynamite”, director Jared Hess has probably given us one of the most idiosyncratic heroic trips over the past 25 years. Since then, he has been known for not having to shear his own boots, even in larger budgeted films such as the wrestling comedy “Nacho Libre”, but tough. And this decision paid off: Hess unleashed with “A Minecraft film“An absolute gaming madness that makes it comfortable somewhere between the Dadaist trip and brainrot internet culture. Maybe that's even the best way to remain loyal to the unbridled creativity of the template.
In the world of “Minecraft” there are new sacrifices behind every stone.
Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison (Jason Momoa), Henry (Sebastian Eugene Hansen), Natalie (Emma Myers) and Dawn (Danielle Brooks) are four outsiders who are going through a difficult time. While some have to stay afloat with several part -time jobs, the others face financial ruin or have just lost liability in life by the death of a loved one. But when a mysterious portal opens that shows them a path into a cube -shaped world, their life is completely turned upside down from one moment on the other: in this cubic country, the laws of reality seem to be undermined and thus everything possible.
But there are also dangers: In order to start home, the quartet must first find its way around this bizarre world and compete against dangers such as zombies or aggressive pigs – so -called piglins. Her whole hope rests on Steve (Jack Black), an experienced craftsman who has been living in the Klötzchen world for many years and has a lot of helping the troop on her involuntary trip. While you master the numerous challenges together, you can see that your creative talents are the key to success-both in the Minecraft Oberwelt and in your own reality …
A trip that you have to get involved in
“A Minecraft Film” will offend quite a few spectators in the expectations of a classic Minecraft cinema film. The brightly colored look and the loud humor definitely have the potential to scare you first. To make matters worse, Jared Hess' video game adaptation is not at all about an emotionally gripping story-and exactly generates his joke from it. Mystical artifacts are dismissed here as a “thing” – and an attempt to explain the generic laser beam, with which the Oberkösewichtin wants to secure infinite power, already fails in the beginning and is therefore hilarious. In the cinema chair, you have to get involved with the madness of this world and its strange residents – and then experience a journey of discovery that actually gets astonishingly close to the unique feeling of “Minecraft”.
Why does everything have to be angular in this world? Why are the villagers thick with mono brews that are thick -nosed, who talk incomprehensible stuff? Why haunted creeper block monsters through the area at night? Of course, all of this will only happen “Minecraft” newcomers strangely. In the template, all of these own rules, sacrifices and laws want to be researched – and even after many hours, the urge to discover should be awakened. It is precisely this feeling that “a Minecraft film” captures excellently, because here too, new adventures and weird moments are waiting behind every corner.
If you always wanted to know how a roast chicken is prepared, you should be careful here.
Surprisingly, the film is not geared towards a pure children's and youth audience. Many of the jokes are amazingly dark, for example when a young Piglin is transformed into a steak cold -blooded because he dared to live out creatively. In any case, the scenes in the Nether, which represents something like the “Minecraft” hell, are quite dark. Here, too, the events also loosen up, but the pig's essays with their glowing eyes and nasty grimaces or the sinister zombies, which immediately go up in flames when it comes to sunlight, are something much for a younger audience.
The situation is similar with the zotic sayings, which are carved out in particular by “American Pie” Milf Jennifer Coolidge. This invites “The Garbage Man” Garrison to open her lid and stuff her sack in. There are several such indications that seem very unexpectedly radical in the context of a “Minecraft” film-and that is precisely because of this during the press demonstration a lot of cheerfulness in the ranks. Even if such frivolities are likely to fly over the heads of the smallest “Minecraft” fans, this explains the fully justified FSK-12 classification.
Grill chicken à la Minecraft
Nevertheless, Jared Hess knows how to generate his joke from inner -world logic. How do you roast a chicken in “Minecraft”? Right, you just tip over Lava over him. And if you wanted to know how a filled bucket can cushion a fall from airy heights, you should definitely solve a cinema card. As the biggest highlight, the actor duo Jack Black and Jason Momoa proves to provide some of the best scenes with their rivalry. When Jack Black rides through airy heights on the escape from the piglits on Jason Momoa, only to form a “men-sandwich” a short time later to glide through a tight hole in a masonry, this is too absurd to really believe it.
Only when the barely existing story is pushed forward or emotional bridges between the characters are to be beaten, some idling sneaks into what is otherwise exuberant. The tragic story about the sibling couple Henry (Sebastian Eugene Hansen) and Natalie (Emma Myers) seems out of place in the film-and is also treated by Hess like annoying accessories. Therefore, a large part of the audience is likely to acknowledge the emotional moment of the final pronunciation with a tired shrug.
Conclusion: What a wild ride! “A mincraft film” celebrates creative freedom and the limitless canvas. If you have a heart for absurd humor, you should have a good time with this film despite small lengths.