Jason Momoa in A Minecraft Movie

Pop CultureApril 4, 2025

Review: A former Minecraft superfan’s verdict on A Minecraft Movie

Guest writer

Jason Momoa in A Minecraft Movie

Much of Thomas Giblin’s childhood was spent playing Minecraft. Does the new movie adaptation do it justice?

I’ve adored Minecraft, the open-world sandbox video game where you can build whatever you want, ever since I was a speckly-faced, spikey-haired, socially-awkward kid. I spent all my lunchtimes and countless late nights crafting a new vision for my life and the world. My greatest in-game accomplishments were the construction of a fully-functioning lighthouse and a giant roller coaster that spelled out “Happy Mother’s Day”.

The 14-year-old-me would’ve been shocked to find his future self at the Aotearoa premiere of the Hollywood adaptation of their beloved game this week. But there I stood, a forlorn adult, waiting with my friends in a snaking queue. If being at a movie premiere wasn’t shocking enough, it would’ve further blown that teenager’s mind to learn that the blockbuster adaptation of Minecraft was filmed right here in Aotearoa.

As the proud Kiwi cast and crew of A Minecraft Movie murmured with excitement, I was quietly filled with a sense of dread. Despite my affection for the game, the movie’s red flags were hard to ignore. It had been over a decade since plans for the adaptation were first announced by the game’s creator Markus ‘Notch’ Persson, who shortly after would express his support for misogyny, transphobia and white nationalism publicly on social media.

Despite Persson’s controversies and the first director departing due to creative differences, it should have not come as a surprise that A Minecraft Movie has been trapped in developmental purgatory. Minecraft has no set quests, stories or characters to pull from. There’s a swathe of different game modes to choose from. Every experience of Minecraft varies widely – how do you adapt that into a film that players recognise and relate to?

A Minecraft Movie starts out in smalltown Idaho, where the once-great gamer Garrett ‘The Garbage Man’ Garrison (Jason Momoa) is on the verge of being evicted from his vintage game parlour. Young aspiring inventor Henry (Sebastian Hansen) stumbles through the door with his sister Natalie (Emma Myers), a struggling social media executive who strikes up a friendship with Dawn (Danielle Brooks), the local realtor whose side hustle is a mobile zoo.

Jack Black, Jason Momoa and Sebastian Hansen in A Minecraft Movie

Before long Garrett and Henry inadvertently transport themselves, Natalie and Dawn to the Overworld – aka the Minecraft world. Upon their arrival they’re saved by Steve (Jack Black), a pro of this world, who must safeguard this merry band of misfits as they journey across Minecraft’s perilous biomes.

This whirlwind of exposition all happens in mere minutes, but among it something unexpected appears – the grandiose Huntly Power Station has been transformed into a potato chip factory with a giant Pringles-style mascot atop it. Even in this madcap green screen Minecraft world, Aotearoa shines through. When the threatening tenor of the antagonist, the evil Piglin queen Malgosha (Rachel House) rings out, I half expected her to say “she’ll be right.”

As a longtime fan of the game, I was ready to be disappointed by A Minecraft Movie. But when the tamariki dotted around the theatre began to gasp in awe, something changed. As the film’s heroes worked together and fought off Malgosha’s horde of piglins using the creativity and self-expression that the Minecraft world empowers its own players with, I came to a realisation: it was time to pass the baton of Minecraft to those who now need it more than me.

A Minecraft Movie is far from perfect – it has a nauseating amount of candy-coloured CGI, and Jack Black delivers one of the unfunniest performances I’ve ever seen, hamming things up to a tedious degree. It exhaustively namedrops mechanics, tools, biomes and mobs from the game, but stays too focused on the punchline of a mildly-humorous gag, or nonsensical song to properly explore why each element of Minecraft is so special.

For a game containing limitless possibilities at your fingertips, A Minecraft Movie could stand to be more creative in its storytelling. Instead, the film is a low-stakes but fun-filled spectacle, with a surprisingly endearing and earnest celebration of creativity and self-expression at its heart. If any family-friendly Hollywood film is going to make millions off the horde of cynical tie-in merchandise, at least this one has a message.

A Minecraft Movie is in cinemas now.

Keep going!

A woman holding a young girl smiles and looks upwards at the sky

Marzia, one of the subjects of new local documentary project fiftyone. (Image: Supplied)

Pop CultureApril 3, 2025

The documentary capturing the ‘ripple effect’ of kindness following March 15

Alex Casey

Senior writer

Marzia, one of the subjects of new local documentary project fiftyone. (Image: Supplied)

Alex Casey talks to Bariz Shah and Saba Afrasyabi, the couple who launched a project to change 51 lives in honour of those lost in the Christchurch mosque attacks.

When Bariz Shah and Saba Afrasyabi walked into Naeem’s house in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, they knew immediately that he needed their help. Down a back alley, the young man shared a room containing everything – kitchen, living, bedroom – with his sick father. “The look on Naeem’s face when we were speaking to him will stay with me” says Shah. “He was just so broken and vulnerable, but he desperately needed support.”

After helping him to purchase a karachi, a cart used to sell goods at the market, for around $400 NZD, Shah and Afrasyabi returned just a few weeks later to find Naeem’s life transformed. “He had his store at the market – hair gel, shampoo, stuff like that – and it was all beautifully organised and he had this huge smile on his face,” says Shah. “That transition in him from feeling so desperate, to actually having hope to change his situation, was so beautiful.”

Naeem’s is just one of the 51 lives changed by Shah and Afrasyabi in Afghanistan as a part of project fiftyone, a project now captured in a local documentary of the same name. The couple were living in Ōtautahi when the mosque attacks took 51 Muslim lives in 2019, and they were inspired to do something positive in the aftermath. “We decided we weren’t going to give into this hate and we want to do something with all the positive energy in the community,” says Shah.

They spent many late nights researching and talking at C1 Espresso, the young students always sharing a single cappuccino between them, until they came across the work of Muhammed Yunus and his microloan scheme in Bangaladesh. “That’s when we realised: how cool would it be to actually go into Afghanistan [Shah is Afghan-born], set up 51 micro-businesses, film the entire process, and then bring it all back to New Zealand?”

Bariz Shah and Saba Afrasyabi sit in the purple glow of a computer screen — Bariz Shah and Saba Afrasyabi. (Image: Supplied)

Christchurch quickly rallied around the cause, from the YMCA and other community and church organisations making donations, to the University of Canterbury lending a camera for them to use, to individuals chipping into their Givealittle. “We were so surprised at the trust put in us, even when they didn’t even know us personally,” says Afrasyabi. “It was very beautiful, and we of course made a promise that we would do this and bring these stories back.”

Although Shah says it was their mission to film as much of the “super overwhelming” process as possible, there are moments in the documentary where the pair hurriedly put the camera down in public, for fear that it might have been perceived as a weapon. “Looking back, I do think we were excessively paranoid,” he admits. “But we made this grand promise to New Zealand, and we didn’t want to get kidnapped or have the camera stolen and come back with nothing.”

A young man smiles off camera against a worn and grafitti'd wall — Wafa, one of the subjects in project fiftyone. (Image: Supplied)

What they managed to capture is an extremely moving and inspiring journey that shows just how far a little bit of kindness and generosity can travel. There’s Marzia, the widowed mother of six who lost her husband in a suicide bomber attack in their local mosque, whose son can now make money for the family. Or Waheed, who managed to sell enough scarves and beads through his karachi business that he is now studying part-time.

“Every single story was a huge life-learning experience,” says Afrasyabi. Also a keen photographer, she also snapped portraits of the subjects involved in the project and displayed them in the Arts Centre for the Christchurch community. “New Zealand can feel very isolated from these places and communities,” she says. “During that exhibition we saw how much love there was, and now everyone can come to the film and see the real impact they have made in another part of the world.”

Although there are some entertaining moments in the film – including a couple’s quarrel about capturing scenic shots, and a very relatable Google Maps argument – Shah hopes project fiftyone can keep spreading the “ripple effect” of kindness that came in the aftermath of March 15. “We hope people come away inspired about how you can use tragedy to create positive change and to have that in their life, no matter what they’re dealing with,” he says.

“It’s not a movie to make you feel good,” adds Afrasyabi. “It’s from the people, to the people.”

project fiftyone is in cinemas nationwide now.