movie

A Minecraft Movie review

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An image of the poster for A Minecraft Movie, showing the five main characters.

You’re probably aware that A Minecraft Movie is out, considering the absolute juggernaut of publicity behind it. And seeing as our nine-year-old is obsessed with Minecraft, we inevitably went to see it yesterday.

My verdict: it’s basically fine. Three stars out of five.

Our nine-year-old loved it. They have played some Minecraft at home, and watched many hours of other people playing Minecraft on YouTube. I guess you would get more out of this film if you are familiar with the game, judging by the cheers from fellow members of the audience every time some kind of iconic item from the game was featured in the film. We went to see it at our local Vue in Halifax, and the screen was pretty much full. I guess that’s something to do with it only having opened on Friday in the UK.

There’s a series of scenes before the opening credits where we’re introduced to Jack Black‘s character, Steve, and the ‘Overworld’ which is the blocky Minecraft world. Then we return to the real world to be introduced to Jason Momoa‘s character during the opening credits. Indeed, the first part of the film spends quite a bit of time in the ‘real world’ before we’re back into the blockiness. It’s probably a good thing that the Overworld is featured so early, as it doesn’t come up again for a little while.

The plot is, well, a bit meh. Jack Black is peak Jack Black in this, and Jason Mamoa (also a producer of the film) does well, but the rest of the characters could do with more depth. It’s perhaps ironic that a film about a world-building game, doesn’t itself have enough world-building, in my opinion.

Ultimately though, this film will do well because it’s about Minecraft, and there’s just enough fan service to get players of the game on board. If you’re not familiar with the game, and don’t have kids, then maybe wait for it to come out on streaming.

Beetlejuice 1 and 2

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The two posters for each of the Beetlejuice films.

Yesterday, Christine and I watched both Beetlejuice films – the 1988 original, and the 2024 sequel. The 1988 film is available on Netflix at present, and we watched the sequel at our local cinema.

Christine had seen the first Beetlejuice film before, but I hadn’t. It’s been one of those things where Christine has been trying to get me to watch it, but we’ve never found the time. Indeed, I had purchased a download of it to watch on a long train journey back in 2021, and I think it’s still downloaded to my iPad, but it remained unwatched.

In fact, my main memories are of the animated TV series; the late 1980s and early 1990s saw many blockbuster films (Ghostbusters, The Mask, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) getting tie-in animated shows for younger viewers. But, like I said, I hadn’t seen the film until yesterday.

Beetlejuice (1988)

The film is very much of its time, and you can tell it was made on a smaller budget – around $15million, which would be in the ballpark of $40million today. The special effects are mostly done the old-fashioned way, with models and animatronics. I also thought it ended quite abruptly – without wanting to give away spoilers, I was expecting at least a couple more scenes. Also, the pacing is slower, but that’s probably true of most older films.

Overall, not bad – I would probably rate it three out of five.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)

So, the sequel. It’s set quite a way in the future, but Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara reprise their roles from the first film. Absent is Jeffrey Jones; his character features in the film, but the actor doesn’t – he’s still alive but, well, you can look up what he did and why he’s not getting any more acting work. Jenna Ortega joins the cast in a new role for this film – you may recognise her from playing Wednesday Addams in the recent Netflix series.

This second film is a bigger budget affair – around $100million, which it’s already gained back and then some since its release last month. Whilst there’s still some animatronics, the bigger budget means better special effects. There’s a lot more going on, with several sub-plots coalescing at the end. Watch out for cameos by Danny DeVito and Burn Gorman (aka Owen from the first two series of Torchwood).

I much preferred the second film. Both are weird, but I found the second film more funny-weird rather than simply weird.

You can watch the second film on its own, without having seen the first one – a friend did this and enjoyed it. But there’s lots of subtle references in the second film that’ll make more sense if you’ve seen the first one.

A third film?

There were 36 years between the original Beetlejuice film and the sequel. If it takes another 36 years to release a third film, then Tim Burton and Catherine O’Hara will both be over 100 if they’re still alive. Still, you have to say Beetlejuice’s name three times to summon him, so making it a trilogy would make sense. Seeing as how the second film has done so well at the box office, I’m sure plans for a third film are being drawn up.

IF – a film about imaginary friends

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At the weekend, we went to see IF at the cinema. You’ve probably seen the trailer, as it’s the latest film to star Ryan Reynolds.

It’s about a 12 year old girl, who is going through some hard times, and realises she can see the imaginary friends of others. Unfortunately, these ‘ifs’ can no longer be seen by their kids, and are looking for new kids to befriend. The BBFC rate it as a U, so it’s suitable for kids, but they do warn of ‘bereavement themes’.

I enjoyed it, and there definitely seems to be a split between the audience and critic scores. On RottenTomatoes, the critics score it 49% but audiences 88%. If you do go and see it, bring tissues; our eight-year-old has seen it twice now and teared-up both times. And maybe don’t think too hard about the plot; The Guardian’s review highlights a number of plot holes.

Butterfly Tale

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Film poster for Butterfly Tale

At the weekend, I took our 8-year-old to see Butterfly Tale at the cinema. It was only released in the UK on Friday, but has been on general release elsewhere as early as October. It’s a joint Germany and Canada production – indeed, the first minute of the film is just the various logos of producers, distributors and funders. I hadn’t heard of it before, and according to iMDB, it’s grossed less than a $1million so far.

The film is based on the migration of Monarch butterflies. The main characters are Patrick, a butterfly with mis-sized wings who can’t fly, and his friend Marty, who is still a caterpillar. Because they can’t fly, they have to come up with a plan to join the rest of the butterflies on their migration.

It is very much a film for kids. Indeed, our eight-year-old really enjoyed it. It’s not a ground-breaking piece of cinema, and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend seeing it at the cinema unless you have young kids. The animation and story are nothing special. It’s likely to be the sort of random film that you can let you kids watch on streaming if it’s a wet afternoon and you need some peace. Indeed, seeing as the UK is one of the last countries to see a cinema release, I imagine it’s already on streaming services elsewhere.

Most cinema chains seem to have at least a few showings of it right now. When we saw it, there were only around 10 people at the showing – despite it being at the biggest screen. I suspect it’ll have a rather limited run in cinemas.

Sunday afternoon at the movies

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On Sunday we had an afternoon at the cinema. We caught Frozen before it closes, and the previews of The Lego Movie.

Frozen

Frozen has been out for a while now in the UK, but Sunday was our first chance to watch it. We didn’t go to an earlier ‘sing-along’ screening but went to one mid-afternoon. Though it was in one of the smaller screens at our local multiplex, about half the seats were taken, and mostly by families with young girls. Because it’s a Disney princess film, of course.

I’ve been aware of its most popular song, Let It Go, for some time – as well as its covers and its parodies. It’s a great song but really you need to watch the film as well to make full sense of the lyrics. In particular, Let It Go isn’t sung by the main protagonist, as you might have expected.

Thankfully, the film really is worth watching – we both really enjoyed it. Yes, okay, it’s a kids film, but the characters are really relatable. Plus, there’s a surprising amount of innuendo to keep adults entertained; I had to tell Christine off for laughing out loud when Anna asks Kristoff to, ahem, ‘take her up the north mountain’. Fnar fnar.

Oh, and apparently it’s worth staying to the end of the credits. We found this out after leaving the cinema. Doh.

The Lego Movie

Conversely, we watched The Lego Movie before its official release in the UK, which is on Friday. I can foresee some ‘interesting’ Valentines Day visits to the cinema.

I think when The Lego Movie was first announced, a lot of people were expecting it to be rubbish. To be fair, there haven’t been many good film adaptations of toys or computer games. Thankfully, The Lego Movie breaks the mould and is actually good – funny, touching, and with an actual plot! For people like me who grew up with Lego in the 1980s, there’s a lot to like, and although it is computer animated it feels like it could have been made using actual Lego and stop-motion animation. Things like the references to Octan, the fictional petrol brand used by Lego, and the various mini-figures that have been released over the years.

There are, however, two scenes that stop the film from being near perfect. I don’t want to post spoilers, so read what Dave2 said about it. Obviously, anything below the spoiler warning on that blog post is a spoiler, so if you haven’t seen it, be careful.

I think this is the first time in many years that I’ve seen two films in a day – the last time was probably 2007ish. Generally, going to the cinema is something we do every other month, even though we now have a Vue cinema close by in Halifax and don’t have to go all the way to Bradford. Sadly it’s quite an expensive treat – tickets for the Lego Movie were over £10 each as we ended up seeing it in 3D, and Sunday is peak time. Nowadays we’re not so likely to go to the cinema unless it’s a film that we definitely want to see on a big screen, as even buying the DVD is often cheaper now, nevermind renting it from Lovefilm.