a completely timely, unbiased, and fair review of
a minecraft movie
I don't have anything in particular against nostalgia. I don't like the feeling (because being reminded of my happier youth
is painful when there's no way to get back to it), but I'm no nostalgia hater. I enjoy a good stroll down misery
memory lane every once in a while. My problem with A Minecraft Movie doesn't stem from an overwhelming hatred for nostalgia.
It doesn't even stem from an overwhelming hate of fun, or people enjoying bad things. I am also a partaker of garbage; it
happens to the best of us. What pisses me off about A Minecraft Movie is not that it sucks; it's that it could've been better.
The studio pumped out a dull turd, but they knew everyone would like it because it's based on that one game that everyone loves.
"You remember those good old days, playing Minecraft with friends? Well now it's a movie! Buy tickets please, and give us your money!"
According to Variety (via Wikipedia, the best site on the internet), the movie had a budget of $150 million. That's more than Anora, the movie that swept at the Oscars. That's nearly 4x as much as Flow, a beautiful Latvian film that won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe. And if you're still not seeing the picture, that's nearly twice as much as The Wild Robot. What I'm getting at is that this movie cost way too much to be as bad as it was. I see no reason for a movie with this much financing to be as bad as it turned out. I mean, have you *seen* the trailer?! Why does it look like that? I can see the greenscreen! Other than a few funny lines, it's irredeemable. Seriously, the villager design is pure nightmare fuel. One of my friends tried to convince me it was cute, but, as I have functional eyes, I know she was woefully mistaken.
My problem with A Minecraft Movie is its reliance on nostalgia to get butts in seats. It had a vast budget which makes the quality of the movie unjustifiable. People who praise this movie for the theater "experience" or whatever, in my opinion, miss the point. You paid for this brainrot slop, and by continuing to praise it, you are empowering more studios to cash in (or out) on franchise's goodwill. As long as movie execs know the audience will pay for a familiar name or a memeable experience, I don't think any effort will go into making actually good movies. Why bother? That's what is upsetting to me: the fact that it's bad, and that its marketing relies on manipulation of the audience's fond memories, and that people praise it regardless of the quality because they had a good time getting popcorn chucked at their heads by overenthusiastic adolescents.
In truth though, I haven't actually watched the movie, so my opinion is entirely unfair. But I have it on good authority that it is an objectively bad movie, though the two people I "interviewed" thoroughly enjoyed seeing it in theaters. Hell, even Hank Green enjoyed it. But I stand with the critics who saw it and were not impressed. Honestly, I *am* just a hater, but sometimes there's nothing wrong with that. The world needs haters sometimes in order to see the it for what it really is. To my sibling, yes, I am cynical about this movie, but given the current trends of late stage capitalism or whatever, I think my cynicism is totally proportional.
Yes, I am very late to this party. And no, I did not just type out this rant to avoid starting my homework. How dare you imply such a thing.
