A recent offer from Lidl saw me with the opportunity to rent a movie for free. I lost count of the number of titles I scrolled through but I decided that the only film I hadn’t already seen from the long, long list, that I was intrigued to watch and which Jane might also find at least tolerable, was probably A Minecraft Movie (2025).

It was… okay. In the main it was reasonably entertaining although neither particularly insightful nor true to its source material. I’m hoping the inspiration doesn’t feed back the other way, from film to game developers. There were quite a lot of things I’m quite happy not to have in the game, like destructive overworld incursions from piglins riding gondalas suspended from fire-ball breathing ghasts!

I was also struck by how casual the violence was in what is strongly marketed as a movie to appeal to kids. In fairness, no more so than a classic cartoon like Bugs Bunny or Road Runner but the mixture of live action and realistically shaded environments made it seem less palatable. I’d be reticent to recommend it to children; they would probably be better off using the actual game to have their own adventures.

Free rental aside, I don’t feel I lost out on an evening by watching it but I won’t be trying to watch it again before the rental period ends or seeking out chances to watch it again in future. Faint praise but it was still one of the most appealing of several hundred titles on offer!