Adults review: Jack Black energizes the bizarre ‘Minecraft Movie’

“Napoleon Dynamite” and “A Minecraft Movie” seemingly exist in the same cinematic universe.

Before it spends most of its time in a brick-centric video game world, “A Minecraft Movie” begins in rural Idaho, where characters such as washed-up gaming champion Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison (Jason Momoa) exist to bid on abandoned storage lockers and make random, overly serious declarations about their oddball interests. New-in-town teenager Henry (Sebastian Hansen) spends his first day of school building a functional jet pack … in art class. The jetpack malfunctions and destroys a statue of a potato factory’s beloved mascot.

Yep, “A Minecraft Movie” is super weird. And I’m not even talking about all the blocky animals and creepers that traverse the alternate dimension, Overworld.

Credit director Jared Hess (writer/director of “Napoleon Dynamite” and a half-dozen other strange movies) for putting his own creative stamp on what many expected to be a dull, weightless recreation of various “Minecraft” video games. Hess benefits from having his “Nacho Libre” star Jack Black on hand to anchor the rest of the fantasy adventure with the tenacious energy the actor brings to every project, no matter the quality.

Black plays Steve, the mining enthusiast who first discovers a portal to the Overworld where terrain can be easily transformed into building cubes and objects can be crafted into swords and various weapons. Skeletons and creepers attack at night, but if you snatch one of the skeleton’s leg bones, you can tame a vicious wolf to be your beloved canine companion, as Steve does with “Dennis.”

Below the Overworld exists the Nether, a hellscape occupied by pig warriors. When Steve is imprisoned, Dennis heads back to Idaho, enabling the “Garbage Man,” Henry and two other humans (Danielle Brooks and Emma Myers) to visit the Overworld and help Steve. Oh, and Jennifer Coolidge plays a vice principal who gets her own random-but-hilarious subplot that implicates an Overworld villager who visits beloved Idaho.

Weird.

Once the movie settles into CGI block land, the film’s small army of screenwriters combat the generic visuals and action sequences with countless hit-or-miss gags, though Black and Momoa’s energetic performances give even the silliest moments some charm.

Honestly, I had no idea what was happening for most of “A Minecraft Movie.” And it’s just so dumb. But if the legacy of “Napoleon Dynamite” proves anything, it’s that dumb can work.

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Tyler Wilson can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.

    Signage upon arrival at the March 30 world premiere of "A Minecraft Movie" in London.
  

    This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Jack Black, left, Danielle Brooks and Jason Momoa in a scene from "A Minecraft Movie."