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| Mothersbaugh |
A Minecraft Movie: (Mark Mothersbaugh/Various)
Given the amount of time teenage boys have spent playing the Minecraft
video game in the 2010's and 2020's, it's amazing that the movie studios
bungled the inevitable cinematic adaptation of the concept for so long.
The 2025 adaptation,
A Minecraft Movie, was long in the making,
and features four average and not-so-average people who get sucked into
the Minecraft universe of blocky virtual reality where they discover a
guy trapped there from decades before, Steve, who has mastered the land
and fights an evil ruler of the game's darker half. As Steve, Jack Black
is the comedy heart of
A Minecraft Movie, and the gang of five
protagonists spend the film doing various silly things and battling the
mindless minions of the villain. All of this action happens because of
magical orbs and crystals that somehow found themselves amongst the
famous potatoes of Idaho. The plotline is so ridiculously dumb that
audiences reacted with glee at its hideousness, catapulting the film to
grosses that immediately stirred studio interest in a sequel. The
general formula of the film is familiar to anyone who has seen
The
Lego Movie, and it's no surprise that veteran parody composer Mark
Mothersbaugh became involved in the project. Before he got to his part,
however, the movie employed Black to conjure a slew of original songs,
performing some of them himself. His ridiculous but funny short entry,
"Steve's Lava Chicken," became an internet sensation, prompting the
release of a longer version on album a few weeks later. These songs and
Mothersbaugh's score remain creatively separate, as do those facets and
the music that specifically carries over from the game. That popular and
easily recognizable legacy music, led by Daniel Rosenfeld using the
artist name C418, has always been helmed by surprisingly tender keyboard
identities for the topic. His colleague, Lena Raine, sees her "Pigstep"
theme reprised during the movie's "Nether's Got Talent" sequence. The
game song "Dragon Fish" also plays during a panda scene. But it's
Rosenfeld's main theme for the game that serves as the most satisfying
inclusion in this film, interpolated into the score by Mothersbaugh a
handful of times (and obviously credited in any album track with
"Minecraft" as its sole or conclusive word), but the usage is rather
token and abruptly inserted when referenced.
For purists of the game music, the inclusion of
Rosenfeld's main theme over the opening credits of
A Minecraft
Movie will be a treat. Here, the idea opens on familiar piano in
"Minecraft" and develops into a fantasy choral parody for the whole
ensemble. It returns to the solo piano for a brief moment at 1:24 into
"I'm Coming With/Minecraft," emerges with choral grandeur at the end of
"Nitwit Crosses and Steve Finds/Minecraft," and very briefly interrupts
the action of "Heroic Henry/Minecraft" near that cue's end. The mass of
Mothersbaugh's score is not as easily remembered, unfortunately, and the
composer is actually not credited by himself in any single cue on the
main album. He was aided by a team that included co-writers Peter
Bateman, Sunna Wehrmeijer, and Tim Jones, though the end result
maintains enough consistency to suffice. The score is largely orchestral
but infuses 1980's rock elements per Mothersbaugh's usual methodology.
Electric guitar and drum kit are tastefully applied where needed. The
choral element is too sparsely rendered despite its occasionally beefy
mixed vocals, betraying its parody roots. Some sound effects interject
in the mix, as in the vocal bouncing in "Midport Village" that reminds
of Lorne Balfe's
Home. Being that it's a purely comedic entry,
there are regular outbursts of outright parody silliness exemplified
best by the fight music in "Chicken Fight Club." In a surprisingly
minimal use, 8-bit tones influence the start of "I Need a Win, Man."
Western whistling and acoustic guitar flavor flashes in "Nitwit Crosses
and Steve Finds" while "Day to Night" has clear homages to John
Williams'
Star Wars: A New Hope in its wonderment. The work is
largely a two-theme construct, with the auxiliary character themes lost
in the narrative. That storyline is poorly conveyed on the album because
the soundtrack is chopped up in its arrangement, but even without this
circumstance, the character themes are never allowed to reassert
themselves at the end of the score, leaving the whole experience rather
incomplete. The bulk of this character material is explored in
"Mintage," a simple, cyclical, wholesome idea on piano, woodwinds, and
strings at the outset of the cue slowly stewing in the middle of "I Need
a Win, Man" on piano as well. A related theme introduced on flute at
0:38 into "Mintage" and developed throughout that cue offers a slightly
noble, anthemic form previewed by brass near its conclusion. That theme
tries to enunciate itself in "Nitwit Crosses and Steve Finds" but
doesn't do it clearly. These ideas never factor much elsewhere.
The two primary themes of
A Minecraft Movie pit
good versus evil. The adventure theme for the protagonists is a capped
by robust descending phrasing, sometimes emulating Alan Menken's
Beauty and the Beast when sensitive, as in "I'm Coming With."
Introduced at 3:03 into "Mintage" in an ensemble and choral outburst,
this main theme opens "Midport Village" lightly on woodwinds in more of
an Andrew Lockington personality and presents a lovely moment on strings
in the middle of that cue. The idea struggles against the villain theme
in "Day to Night," turns cool in
Rocky-appropriate variations
throughout of "Chicken Fight Club," and vaguely informs early passages
in "I'm Coming With." It builds optimistic anticipation in "Woodland
Mansion Planning" with the tone of Patrick Doyle's
The Emoji
Movie, fights off the villain theme in "Steve vs. Malgosha" with
choral triumph, and explodes with gospel-propelled vocals in "Heroic
Henry." This adventure theme elongates for a heroic choral answer to the
villain in "Let's Go Fight Some Pigs" and defeats the darker material
for a moment at 1:48 into "Run from the Great Hog," focusing on more
typical performances later. It charges to a rock conclusion during "Back
in the Nether." Countering this identity is that of the villain, a
fairly typical, ominously descending fantasy theme with dark vocal
shading. Debuting in the last minute of "Midport Village" against the
adventure theme, this obvious material is more comfortable at the outset
of "Day to Night" and blasts away with layered vocals and thumping
percussion in "Steve in the Nether," where it evolves into a sickly
march on brass. After a passing reference in "Chicken Fight Club," the
villain theme threatens against the adventure theme in "Steve vs.
Malgosha," pushes its descending lines to more closely represent the
piglins in "Piglins Attack," and becomes sinister at the start of "Let's
Go Fight Some Pigs." It gains momentum for the story's climax, massive
in the second minute of "Run from the Great Hog" with the choir and
stomping on brass and percussion in "Back in the Nether." Don't expect
any of these themes to truly define the score, though. As with any
Mothersbaugh work, it's the style that counts more than the substance.
To this end, the composer and his team provide exactly what the film
needed. But without really memorable new themes and only minimal
narrative cohesion, the soundtrack as a whole was always destined to be
dominated by the Black songs and other related, vocalized comedy
highlights. There's enough amusement in this collection to please
audiences that turned the movie into a massive box office success, but
it's hard to imagine film score collectors finding much inspiration to
build from.
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