Warning: SPOILERS for A Minecraft Movie are ahead!
This past weekend, I fired up A Minecraft Movie with my HBO Max subscription after missing its rowdy theatrical run. To be fair, I am not this movie’s target audience, both because of my age and barely knowing anything about the video game franchise. But after hearing about how bonkers A Minecraft Movie is and getting tastes of this from the trailers, I finally had to judge it for myself. Imagine my surprise to learn that the most unhinged stuff in this 2025 movie release doesn’t revolve around Jack Black and Jason Momoa, but rather Jennifer Coolidge’s subplot.
Let me be clear, Black’s Steve (singer of the record-breaking “Lava Chicken”) and Momoa’s Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison are not lacking in wild moments in A Minecraft Movie, and they’re unquestionably its main draw. But as I was watching this video game movie that’s made nearly $1 billion worldwide, I remained astounded at what was happening with Jennifer Coolidge’s Marlene, the vice principal at the school Sebastian Hansen’s Henry attends. This starts even before she gets exposed to anything Minecraft-y, from her awkwardly talking about her recently-ended marriage to Henry, to her uncomfortable flirting with Garrett.
And then Marlene met Nitwit, one of the Overworld villagers who accidentally wandered into our world when the portal created by the combined Orb of Dominance and Earth Crystal was left open. Marlene accidentally hits Nitwit with her Jeep Grand Cherokee and is unfazed by his giant head, rectangular nose and inability to say coherent words. Instead, she takes him to dinner and it doesn’t take long for sparks to fly between them.
Between Marlene finding Nitwit to have more personality than her ex Clemente, and Nitwit suggestively raising his unibrow every so often, I was entertainingly shocked at this budding romance. The night ends with Marlene inviting Nitwit back to her place for dessert (God, I hope it’s actual dessert), and I laughed way too much when the waiter asked if they were finished, and the vice principal responded:
No, I think he’s Swedish. But we’re done with our meal.
And then the cherry on top of this wacky sundae comes as A Minecraft Movie’s credits are rolling. Nitwit is seen hanging out in Marlene’s office at the school, looking WASP-y as hell and shockingly speaking with the voice of What We Do in the Shadows’ Matt Berry when Clemente confronts him, and Marlene can also speak Villager now. With their love cemented, Nitwit proposed to Marlene, and she instantly accepted. Oh, and before all this happened, she was about to feed him a baguette. I’m just… so unsettled by it all.
I realize A Minecraft Movie is chiefly aimed at the video game’s fans, particularly the younger ones who’ve played it for thousands of hours. So the humor was always going to be unhinged to some degree, especially with Napoleon Dynamite’s Jared Hess directing. But at least with Jack Black and Jason Momoa’s shenanigans, I had somewhat of an idea of what to expect, given the footage I’d seen in the trailers. I had absolutely no idea how Jennifer Coolidge fit into A Minecraft Movie ahead of viewing it, so I was completely taken aback by her bizarre romance with one of Overworld’s unusual-looking denizens. I won’t go so far as to say those two haunt my dreams, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that started happening.
Another Minecraft Movie is in development, and I’m sure I’ll end up watching it at home just like I did this one. But rather than wondering about what’s next for Steve and Garrett, I instead find myself trying to envision what a marriage between Marlene and Nitwit would look like, and how their child… nope, stopping right there.
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