Minecraft: Fan Reactions To The Final Trailer Are All Over The Place

Video game movies don't exactly have the best reputation. It takes a while to get to anything even somewhat passable when ranking these adaptations from worst to best, so it remains to be seen where "A Minecraft Movie" will wind up. Things haven't been promising so far, as the first trailer left a bad taste in pretty much every fan's mouth. But we now have the final trailer before the film's April 4 release, and things look ... better? 

The trailer boasts cubed pandas, the Nether (where all joy and creativity go to die), and a surprise Jennifer Coolidge appearance at the very end. While people aren't necessarily thinking it'll be a masterpiece, some are staying cautiously optimistic, like Redditor LooseSeal88: "There's a small part of me that wonders if this will have more than meets the eye and get Lego Movie praise from critics. Or perhaps it's just gonna be as crappy as it looks." Meanwhile, u/Ivscksi also held out some hope: "The live action aspect looks terrible, but honestly, this still seems entertaining." Both listed things like the chicken jockey and Elytra Easter eggs as evidence that some thought was put into making something "Minecraft" fans could feasibly enjoy. 

It's a little hard to determine who's genuinely excited and who's just trolling by saying "A Minecraft Movie" will actually be good. One common response to the final trailer is to post the Martin Scorsese "Absolute Cinema" gif, but this could very well be in jest. It may not be cinema, but if it makes for an entertaining 100 minutes of distraction from the horrors of reality, it'll be a job well done. 

There's some extremely tepid optimism that "A Minecraft Movie" could somehow surprise everybody, but most still aren't holding their breath. The general consensus remains that the film looks extremely bad, with a small sampling of some of the comments found on X (formerly Twitter) saying, "This looks so damn awful" and "Put that thing back where it came from or so help me." @DontSmileDean on X (formerly Twitter) made the pointed comment: "Less of a minecraft movie, more a movie that constantly references minecraft." 

Many other detractors are hung up on Jack Black's casting as Steve, a miner in the "Minecraft" video game. Back on Reddit, u/bbqsauceboi just doesn't think he seems like a good fit: "A lot going on here but my least favorite part is Jack Black. He's reaching unbelievable levels of self parody." In contrast, u/TheFeelsGoodMan offered some faint praise for one of Black's co-stars: "Jason Momoa is trying really hard to make this thing work."

We've been worried about the "Minecraft" movie for some time now, especially considering it spent well over a decade in development. The end result doesn't seem like it'll be all that promising, but we'd love to be surprised. 

Say what you will about 2023's "The Super Mario Bros. Movie," but at least it understood that something as zany as the Mushroom Kingdom worked best as a cartoon. "A Minecraft Movie" has live-action performers interacting with cubed villagers and animals in a way that comes across as utterly unpleasant. Many on X and Reddit think the movie might have looked better had it just been fully animated, since it appears blatantly fake to have Jason Momoa existing in the same frame as a CGI-rendered creeper.

But maybe "A Minecraft Movie" has something up its sleeve after all. The final trailer introduces audiences to the Nether, which Steve describes as "a place with no joy or creativity at all." In a perfect world, "A Minecraft Movie" could comment on and satirize how soulless Hollywood blockbusters have become, but that may just be wishful thinking. On the other hand, if the movie winds up being as bad as everyone thinks it will be, critics could have a field day inserting that line into their reviews. They can claim the film also lacks joy and creativity and was simply created to take advantage of a massively popular intellectual property.

"Minecraft" currently still has over 200 million active monthly users. If even half of those pay for a ticket to see "A Minecraft Movie," this thing will be a huge financial success and likely spawn a ton of sequels and/or spinoffs. At that point, we'll truly learn the meaning of "no joy or creativity."