It’d be fair to say the live-action Minecraft movie’s first trailer didn’t exactly arrive to rapturous applause. But now Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures are back for a second try, this time unleashing the deep Steve lore, tree punching, teleporting Ender Pearls, an unfortunate incident involving a chicken, and even an adorable square bee.
It all kicks off with some backstory for Jack Black’s gloriously bejumpered Steve, detailing how he chiselled his way to a “wonderland where anything you can imagine is possible, as long as what you imagine can be built out of blocks”. One brisk dance sequence later, and we’re reintroduced to our cast of more recent newcomers to this strange world: Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison (played by Jason Momoa), Henry (Sebastian Eugene Hansen), Natalie (Emma Myers) and Dawn (Danielle Brooks). Sadly, there’s still no sign of Jennifer Coolidge, which is where my primary interest in this whole endeavour lies, but I can wait.
But even without everybody’s favourite yacht evacuator, it all looks like a harmless bit of enjoyable fluff, featuring Jack Black as his usual effervescent self, some energetic CGI (although the art style is still a little jarring), and – in this second trailer at least – enough Minecraft easter eggs to sate even the most militant eight-year-old fan. It even finds time for a bit of ye olde mild peril – complete with zombies and arrow-launching skeletons – when night falls at the end.
“Four misfits,” explains the official blurb if you’re looking for more context, “find themselves struggling with ordinary problems when they are suddenly pulled through a mysterious portal into the Overworld: a bizarre, cubic wonderland that thrives on imagination. To get back home, they’ll have to master this world (and protect it from evil things like Piglins and Zombies, too) while embarking on a magical quest with an unexpected, expert crafter, Steve.”
“Together, their adventure will challenge all five to be bold and to reconnect with the qualities that make each of them uniquely creative… the very skills they need to thrive back in the real world.” And if we can somehow ignore that second paragraph until it pops right out of existence, it doesn’t actually sound that bad.
The Minecraft movie arrives in cinemas on 4th April next year, and there’s also an animated Minecraft series on the way from Netflix, if the whole live-action thing doesn’t appeal.
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