Warning: This review contains spoilers. If you are interested in watching the movie, it would be better to watch the movie yourself before reading the article.

The Minecraft Movie, rated PG, was a good movie for kids and families. It was simple, entertaining, and had a few good laughs. What the movie failed to deliver, however, was a movie about the actual Minecraft game. It’s clear that the writers’ experience with Minecraft was surface-level at best because it failed to capture the true essence of creativity that Minecraft fans love. The experience of Minecraft is fundamentally creative and the movie failed to properly explore this, despite that being their entire theme. 

The Good Stuff

1. There were a few funny moments, in the script. You can tell that both the actors and the writers had fun making the movie. There were several moments where jokes stuck a perfect landing, and many more that made an admirable effort. 
2. The music was entertaining, my personal favorite was “Lava Chicken”. It was undoubtedly catchy and fun for the audience. 
3. The memes generated from this movie have become something of instant classics, and I look forward to seeing them return every few years. 

What Made it “Mid”

1. It sounds like a contradiction, but something Minecraft players understand is that the concept of creativity isn’t always experienced through creating in Minecraft. The best part about Minecraft is that you can take it slow, you can explore, you can build, you can go after achievements, but you can even do the things you don’t normally think about. One of my fondest memories from playing the game is deciding that I would dig to the core of the earth, and constructing a large pit that sank into the ground. It was silly and illogical, but the idea was mine. And that’s the best part about Minecraft. 

The Minecraft Movie, meanwhile, focuses on building in the specific and entirely unrelatable perspective of Henry. Within the first 20 minutes, Henry successfully invents a jet pack, which makes the character completely unrelatable. Furthermore, Henry goes on to have his signature inventions not be from the actual game, violating the concept of creativity. The idea of being creative is taking the options you have and going beyond that, using the tools and resources you’ve been given. Making Henry bend the rules of the game isolates players from the core concept of the movie. Take the creativity of the Minecraft community, for example. People have created challenges, designed plots, and started fictional wars, all in the structure of the same blocks. But Henry feels like a cop-out, which alienates The Minecraft Movie from who should have been their main target audience: the players of the actual game.

1. The Minecraft movie’s items are inconsistent with what’s possible in the game, even with the movie’s own set of logic. Take the ender pearl, for example. Steve says that he almost died fighting an enderman to get it, and it’s shown in his introduction that he is extremely competent in combat, able to fend off hordes of zombies with his bare hands. Meanwhile, all Henry did was swing the axe back and forth, and that was somehow effective enough to kill the Enderman. Endermen can also show visions (which is not in the game), and Henry can get over it rather fast. However, Henry’s journey seems to have the most emotional turmoil, and before Steve was captured, he was in fairly high spirits. Therefore, it makes no sense that Steve could have almost died from an enderman. There are a variety of instances like this throughout the movie.
2. There were also too many irrelevant YouTuber references in the movie. In terms of screen time itself, it was ridiculous. Take the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie, for example. Although only two made it into the movie as actors (CoryxKenshin and Matpat), including other YouTubers as “employees of the month” on the walls in the back is a fun nod to the game itself, as many secrets were hidden on the walls in FNAF. Cory and Matpat were also given a good amount of screen time, and the camera wasn’t afraid to focus on them. Meanwhile, the YouTubers in the Minecraft movie were hidden, to the point that anyone watching the movie unaware would consider them background characters and not even think to look closer. Actual fans of the YouTubers didn’t know they were there. This feels almost disrespectful when you realize that they were unwilling to pay homage and refused to give any form of limelight, despite pulling them onto the set. 
3. Emotional pull. There was music in the movie, and I will admit that some of it is catchy and got stuck in my head. However, there was a distinct lack of choreography whatsoever during these musical moments; most of the characters were just there, staring…. This made the music feel awkward and ruined the immersion. The attempts at emotional moments felt forced into the script. Henry’s sister was ultimately extremely supportive, and her comment about destruction occurring when he tried to be creative felt out of character. And it doesn’t make enough sense for her to apologize so profoundly because of her comment, because she was right. He destroyed a giant statue that, if it had fallen in the other direction, could have easily killed hundreds. He’s in the wrong for that.

For a seasoned Minecraft player, The Minecraft Movie didn’t feel like Minecraft at all. Playing Minecraft changes you as a person. Watching the Minecraft movie doesn’t introduce anything remotely memorable to you. I left the movie feeling almost the same as I was before, the only change was my newfound intense disappointment. And sadly no, the funny memes do not count as enough to boost the rating.