A Minecraft Movie

Goofy fun once it gets going thanks to big laughs from Jack Black and Jason Momoa, A MINECRAFT MOVIE is a noisy, visually stunning family night at the movies.

This one demands to be seen on the big screen, where every cube POPS.

Falling into the "LOUD is FUNNIER!" genre of "The Goonies" and "1941", non-gamers are quickly introduced to the game worlds that serve as the playing field for our main character misfits.

Jack Black is full-tilt hilarious as Steve, a boy who dreamed of becoming a pix-axe wielding miner. Finding two glowing cubes in a mine, the Overworld and the Nether are created, one a garden of Eden made of magical cubes and the other a right angle, flaming underworld that looks a lot like the cartoon hell of "South Park".

Those magical cubes eventually pull four strangers into Steve's worlds.

The first half hour of the film introduces us to these four and shares the same kind of small town quirk that Director Jared Hess brought to his biggest hit, 2004's "Napoleon Dynamite". That's a compliment.

Mamoa, seemingly wearing the same wardrobe as his maniacal villain in "Fast X", plays Garrett, a loner living in his past as an 80's video game champ. Surely I can't be the only one to notice how much his dilapidated video store sits on a lonely, rounded corner like Flynn's in "Tron".

Mamoa is hilarious playing dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks and commits 100% to the role. He and Black together share more than a few great side glances and raised eyebrows.

Emma Myers (Wednesday) plays Natalie, a young woman moving with her brother Henry (Sebastian Hansen) to a very small town after the death of their parents. Their realtor Dawn is a wacky character, part realtor, part traveling zoo proprietor. Danielle Brooks (incredible in 'The Color Purple") is a lot of fun, but not given a lot to do.

The film kind of plods along until the four are shot through the portal into the Overworld. At that point, the pace picks up and the movie is instantly more fun and visually, an absolute blast.

Black manages to break into song more than once and every time he did, it brought the house down at the IMAX showing I enjoyed. Each of the songs is unexpected, funny and the best of them "I Feel Alive" is a great rocker. The music score is by Mark Mothersbaugh from "Devo" and he delivers. "Steve's Lava Chicken" is a comic highlight.

The story does a decent job of setting our crew on a series of episodic quests that feel like the game, while offering plenty of easter eggs for gaming fans and humor for non-gamers.

The reliable Jennifer Coolidge (A Mighty Wind) is also hilarious as the Assistant Principal at Henry's new school. To say she's an over-sharer doesn't quite cover it. Hess cleverly finds a way to keep popping back to the real world and Coolidge and she never disappoints.

The CGI in the game worlds is very well done, and while there's a lot less "building" in the movie than I anticipated, the weapons making and some camera shots of multilevel worlds really deliver.

With the best runaway mine car sequence since Indy and Short Round escaped the Temple of Doom and a chicken boxing match that kept me laughing, there's something for everyone.

It's not easy to make a videogame adaption that connects with kids, teens and the adults taking the smaller ones to the theater. For me, the best recent example of that perfect blend is 2023's "Dungeons & Dragons", which was little seen and underappreciated. This feels closer to the box office hit "Super Mario Bros" from 2023, but the deft blend of human actors into the gaming universe here is impressive on another level.

Based on the packed IMAX showing I was in and the audience of ALL ages in attendance, I'm betting this one is a big, Iron Golem size hit this Spring.

Black+Momoa cubed=B+ family enjoyment.