The Guardian
Block-busted: why homemade Minecraft movies are the real hits 3 avril 2025 à 13:00

Block-busted: why homemade Minecraft movies are the real hits

3 avril 2025 à 13:00

The bestselling video game ever has a devoted, vocal, following. Can a faceless corporation make a successful film based on such beloved IP without involving its fanbase?

By any estimation, Minecraft is impossibly successful. The bestselling video game ever, as of last December it had 204 million monthly active players. Since it was first released in 2011, it has generated over $3bn (£2.3bn) in revenue. What’s more, its players have always been eager to demonstrate their fandom outside the boundaries of the game itself. In 2021, YouTube calculated that videos related to the game – tutorials, walk-throughs, homages, parodies – had collectively been viewed 1tn times. In short, it is a phenomenon.

Such is the strength of feeling, almost all of it positive, about Minecraft that it was only a matter of time before someone tried to turn it into a film. After all, you have a historically popular product and a highly engaged fanbase: what could possibly go wrong? Turns out, quite a lot. Last September, the first trailer for the film – titled A Minecraft Movie – was released, and the reaction was instant and violent. “Minecraft fans devastated by ‘awful’ live-action trailer” read one headline the following day. Some called it “a crime against humanity”; others “a soulless neon abomination”. In less than 24 hours, the website GamingBible had called it “a curse on my eyes” and “pure nightmare fuel”. Within three days of its release, the trailer had been downvoted more than 1m times.

The Guardian
A Minecraft Movie review – building-block game franchise spin-off is rollicking if exhausting fun 2 avril 2025 à 21:00

A Minecraft Movie review – building-block game franchise spin-off is rollicking if exhausting fun

The Guardian

Par :Catherine Bray

2 avril 2025 à 21:00

Full-throttle star turns from Jack Black and Jennifer Coolidge raise laughs but don’t help the perfunctory plotting in this screen take on the game franchise

If you’re not familiar with Minecraft as a game then this film, notionally a big screen version of same, won’t necessarily solve that. Minecraft, even more than most computer games, is what you make of it, an experience generated by the player. So in a way, the idea of making a film set in the Minecraft world is counterintuitive, because it can never replicate what is good about Minecraft, it can only tell you what is good about Minecraft. In addition to that, this comedy-fantasy takes aspects of the Minecraft world and uses them as building blocks in a rollicking adventure suitable for almost all ages, giving Jack Black and Jason Momoa carte blanche to wild out and be deeply silly. Your affection for and/or tolerance of this latter prospect will dictate to a large extent your enjoyment of this film.

Black plays Steve, a crafter who in the game was the original default player, although that doesn’t especially matter here. Momoa is Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison, a washed-up video game champ with an aesthetic stuck permanently and delightfully in the 1980s: pink leather fringed jacket and luscious locks flowing down past his prodigious shoulders like the first snowmelt off a mountain range. As this is kinda-sorta an ensemble film, we also have Henry (Sebastian Hansen), Natalie (Emma Myers) and Dawn (Danielle Brooks) rounding out the good guys squad. It’s not the fault of any of the three latter actors, but it’s hard for them to make an impression alongside Black and Momoa going full-throttle – and it would become an exhausting experience if they tried. That does mean their storylines feel like downtime, a chance to relax and catch your breath, rather than providing the emotional core that the writers presumably intended.

Wccftech
Ninja Gaiden 2 Black Review – The Edge of the Dragon Sword 31 janvier 2025 à 14:00

Ninja Gaiden 2 Black Review – The Edge of the Dragon Sword

Wccftech

Par :Francesco De Meo

31 janvier 2025 à 14:00

The first two entries in the modern Ninja Gaiden series are still considered decades after their original release as two of the best action games ever released and for very good reasons. With the depth of their combat mechanics, their high-speed action, and solid level design, the two games have aged rather well and still play great to this day. With the departure of Team Ninja's founder and series creator Tomonobu Itagaki, however, the franchise kind of lost itself, with a third entry in the series that required a revamped version to steer the course and provide an experience that, […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/review/ninja-gaiden-2-black-the-edge-of-the-dragon-sword/

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