When my nieces were younger, they played the once widely popular game called Minecraft.  As children will sometimes do, they tried to get me involved.  I gave it a shot, but could not find the patience or time for it.  This surprised me somewhat because when I was their age (at that time), I loved Legos.  I like to think I have a pretty healthy imagination, and those plastic building blocks were an early outlet.  Even though I never was able to derive the same enjoyment from Minecraft, I feel there are some similarities between it and Legos.  At base, they are about using the imagination God gave you to create.  At the same time, ideas about creativity change over time, and now I have The Legionnaire.  If there is any indication of this with my nieces, it is that neither of them desired to see A Minecraft Movie with their uncle.  It is just as well.  It is pretty bad.

Speaking of bad, Jack Black plays Steve in A Minecraft Movie, who starts off as a young boy (Bram Scott-Breheny) dreaming of being a miner.  Yet, because the mines do not allow minors (get it?), he is forced to grow up and take what he describes as a soul-sucking corporate job.  Our society really need to relearn what constitutes “soul-sucking,” but I digress.  It does not take long for him laboring in this field to leave his desk for the subterranean world.  On his first day in his new job, he unearths a glowing blue cube with a convenient crystal box in which to place it.  Doing so opens up a portal to a dimension that he calls the “Overworld” where everything is blocks, including that glowing blue “orb” that brought him to this place.  He also finds he has the ability to create things around him, first by mining materials, and then slinging them into place, building a civilization of right angles.  Yet, he is not alone in this universe.  Soon, he discovers the Nether.  It is populated by a race of square, unimaginative, humanoid pigs, ruled by Malgosha (Rachel House).  She wants the blue “orb,” seeing it as the means by which she can lead her piglets into the Overworld and take all its gold.  Steve attempts to stop her but is captured.  However, before the MacGuffin falls into her hands, Steve manages to get the object into the mouth of his trusty pet block-wolf named Dennis.  As Steve is being detained, he instructs the canine to run into the real world and hide it under his bed.  Years pass, and Steve’s objects in his house are put into storage where they are eventually bid on by Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison (Jason Mamoa).  He is barely able to live anymore on his past glory as an arcade game champion in 1989, and his, er . . . nostalgia game shop(?) is being evicted.  He receives a tip that there is a rare Atari system about to be auctioned.  Instead of finding a valuable antique, the box contains Steve’s “orb.”  Dejected, he drives back to town but breaks down on the side of the road.  Passing him on their way to moving to this tiny Idaho hamlet are brother and sister, Henry (Sebastian Hansen) and Natalie (Emma Myers).  Their recently deceased mother had asked that that they move to this village, for some reason, but thankfully Natalie has employment doing social media for a potato factory because, of course, Idaho.  Being still in high school, Henry heads there, but on the way finds Garrett’s store.  The former champ tries to entice the kid into a new money making, mentor scheme, but Garrett does recognize Henry’s talent for constructing things.  This ability is also displayed at school where he is challenged to build a jet pack.  He does so, but bullies clip one of the wires, causing it to fly wildly and strike the giant potato atop the factory.  The school principal, Marlene (Jennifer Coolidge), is about to expel Henry, but the boy manages to convince Garrett to get him out of trouble.  Back at the shop, Henry discovers the blue block, and is drawn to the mines where Steve found his way to the Overworld.  By this point, Natalie is getting worried about Henry’s whereabouts.  Because their real estate agent/traveling zookeeper (as you do) Dawn (Danielle Brooks) is basically the only one Natalie knows, Dawn is the one called upon to help locate the missing brother.  Together, they find Garrett and Henry just as they are about to enter the portal, and all four end up in the Overworld.  When this happens, the crystal box breaks, closing the gateway behind them.  It also alerts Malgosha that the orb is back, and she frees Steve, ordering him to bring her the object.  Naturally, he betrays her, and finds the four newcomers in order to explain some of the crazy ways in which things work in this strange place.  It does not take Malgosha long to figure out that she has been played, and she sends her minions after Steve.  In the ensuing chaos, Garrett, Henry, and Steve get separated from Dawn and Natalie.  Nonetheless, the plan had previously been agreed upon that they would make their way to a special house containing the treasure they need to return to the real world.  It is Garrett, Henry, and Steve that arrive at their destination, with Garrett and Steve providing a distraction while Henry obtains the crystal box.  Sadly, the pig people are waiting, and Garrett redeems himself by staying behind to fight while Henry and Steve escape.  The two meet up with Dawn and Natalie, but Malgosha is there to take the orb, using it to create a dark world that allows the rest of her minions to enter the Overworld without being destroyed.  Anyway, it is up to our so-called heroes to stop the annihilation of Overworld.  With some help from the not-dead Garrett, they triumph and convince Steve to come back to the real world.  We end with everyone partnering to save Garrett’s shop.

I am not sure where Garrett’s store in A Minecraft Movie fits with the source material because, again, I did not play the game.  Either way, I have to confess that I was borderline disturbed when I learned that they were making a film based on the successful computer game.  With all this talk of worlds, there is an entire universe of devotees to Minecraft, but I had been under the impression that society had largely moved on from this phenomenon.  I may have only my nieces to go on for this notion, but through them I became aware of the streamers that made a fortune playing the game.  Ever hear of MrBeast?  Much of his fortune stems from being one of the most streamed gamers in Minecraft.  The problem is that, as alluded to a moment ago, so often this stuff is a fad.  In contrast, this is one of the reasons I love being a Catholic.  I am part of a tradition that stretches back millennia, not some pop-up sect that draws a few adherents before the rent runs out on their strip mall church.  I do not mean to sound snide, I am just trying to make a creative comparison.  The metaphor works, though, because the film is dealing with something that, in all likelihood, will be little remembered in fifty years, or (probably) less.  It is as transient as the Overworld itself, where you can build, destroy, and build up again based on your whim.  It is also interesting because you can store all kinds of wealth for yourself, which can also be thrown to the winds based on the vagaries of gameplay.  Instead, I recommend storing up wealth in Heaven, which can neither be stolen or rot.

What I really trying to put forward is that A Minecraft Movie will rot your brain, or, as Natalie puts it, “nothing here makes sense.”  It is a bad sign when a film says that about itself.  Still, while I struggled through something made for children, my mind kept returning to a concept that was recently covered in the Catechism in a Year podcast with Father Mike Schmitz.  Only days ago,  I listened to one of his sections on creation, specifically talking about how God is the only being who can create ex nihilo.  In other words, God has the unique ability to make something out of nothing.  While this is not what is happening in the game, or the movie, I sometimes wonder whether such pastimes give our youth (or adults, I suppose) a false sense of deification.  Before explaining, I want to reiterate that human creativity is a gift from God. Modern society has done some great things with it, but a lot of bad, too.  It used to be that these energies were devoted more to worshipping God, but, sadly, that is no longer entirely the case.  I appreciate the ones that do carry on that tradition.  What this is all a roundabout way of saying is that I worry that by disappearing into an artificial, digital reality, people will lose grip of the real one.  God exists in the real one, whereas the other is one of our choosing, though false.  I will give the film credit for Steve coming to this realization, sans the religious angle, at the end of the movie.

And boy was I happy to get to the end of A Minecraft Movie.  To illustrate one last time how bad it is, I talked about the film for going on five paragraphs now without mentioning one of the Overworld villagers winding up in the real world, and going on a date with Marlene.  Though pointless, it is cut back to every now and then for reasons I can scarcely comprehend.  If you have little ones, you may be forced to see this.  Otherwise, I would avoid it.