“A Minecraft Movie” (2025) released in theaters roughly over a month ago, and as the title suggests, it was certainly a movie about Minecraft.
It stars Jack Black as the main Minecraft character “Steve” (no last name), as well as multiple other colorful characters who later find themselves in the Minecraft world aka The Overworld.
The original game was released in 2009 and has had constant updates since. The first time I played it was on the Xbox360 and I stopped playing after a few years. I got back into it after the movie was announced and it still is fun!
I’m not going to be talking about the movie that much as a single entity, but rather how it stands in the game and the marketing of the film.
“CHICKEN JOCKEY”
The movie is full of references to the game, and most of the time Steve Minecraft shouts out the references by loudly declaring it.
The following are some of the many references in the movie that are actually in the game:
“Flint and Steel“
“Ender pearl“
“The Nether“
“Crafting Table“
The majority of references is Jack Black loudly declaring the item and then sometimes describing it afterwards to the other characters.
Movie references in the game:
There are none in the base game, however you can download additional content to add characters and items that are created from the movie into the game.
There are two bosses that you can fight in the Nether from the add on: Maligula and the Great Hog.
You can also craft additional weapons such as a tot-launcher and buck-chuckets.
I guess it makes sense to add craftable items to the game from the movie. Otherwise why would the movie characters be able to craft them?
The Marketing
Similar to other movies that I’ve discussed here, McDonald’s made a Minecraft meal to sponsor the game. There was a kid’s happy meal and an adult happy meal for the movie’s release.
The adult meal sold out quickly but I was able to try both types of food it offered beforehand: The Big Mac and Chicken Nuggets.
They pixelated the meal containers and they look pretty neat. They even included a “fry recipe” like in the game. Potato and coal equals fry apparently. The other new thing is the “Nether flame sauce” for dipping the nuggets. It tastes a lot like sriracha. Probably won’t recommend it but it’s good to try once.
Both happy meals included toys of some kind. The kid’s toy is meh, because the toy is mostly blank with a LOT of tiny stickers, but the adult toy does include a fun addition to the actual game.
There was a random one of six options of Minecraft versions of McDonald’s characters. They came with codes you could enter in the game for new skins, and getting the meal gave you bonus content for the game like having Grimace himself in the game and eating Big Macs!
It’s a silly addition to the game that makes it more interesting to play instead of just the base game, so I think the marketing worked.
I’ve been getting back into the game a lot lately since all the updates and movie, and it’s very fun to play and build things.
I think I’ll give the movie itself a 6.5/10. It was fun, but a lot of unnecessary exposition and characters explaining everything.
This made the next video game movie after Pokémon, Sonic the Hedgehog, Mario, and Five Nights at Freddy’s, so what video game movie should be next?
Kristopher K. Online 