Minecraft: The GentleMinions of 2025

[Monterey Jack]

I thought the movie itself looked godawful in the ads, but these in-theater reaction videos make it look absolutely unendurable. IS it seriously two hours of audiences doing this...?

"Say the line, Jack...!"

[AndyDursin]

Its a movie for the masses who play the game.

I dont play this game and have zero interest in this movie but there are a LOT of people who do and its apparently cleaning up with them. Even the Thursday number was huge.

Biggest opener of the year...which is kind of sad but that's where movies are at in 2025.

[Monterey Jack]

I'm certainly glad this is making bank for the sake of beleaguered theaters, but the in-theater reaction videos are as awful as the Taylor Swift concert movie ones from a few years ago. It used to be audiences would cheer and applaud for a movie that manipulated their emotions skillfully and honestly. Now, it's just to record themselves acting like asshats for social media clicks.

[AndyDursin]

Well this is all a function of what the movie-going experience has become. Most people now go every few months, maybe a few times a year, and they show up for the "big event" experience, posting social media clips, engaging in "participation" and whatever else. If this happened to me it'd drive me to stay home even more than the current climate and content is.

Sadly the theater owners I'd imagine will be fine with it, just as they are (or will be) texting and smoking pot. Better that than nobody showing up.

[Monterey Jack]

[AndyDursin]

Gross. And yet, there's nothing else to show, so they'll be happy these idiots are there.

I'm not sure this applies to "all" Minecraft fans, there are a lot of people who play the game of various ages. I think it's more a sign of who's going to movies today and how they behave when they go, which is worse.

[Monterey Jack]

Gross. And yet, there's nothing else to show, so they'll be happy these idiots are there.

No matter how much money this film is making, is it worth it for all of the damage these entitled little sh!ts are doing to theaters with these performative fits? Especially for the theaters with the more expensive, luxurious automatic recliner seats (like mine)? Even a full screenings' worth of tickets sold won't cover having to replace even one seat broken by some over-caffeinated tween jumping up and down like a howler monkey while spilling their popcorn and soda all over the place.

I'm reminded of story told by a bartender at the message board "Customers Suck", where an especially irritating customer kept making outrageous demands, and kept getting drinks and meals comped by a spineless new manager, who wanly defended himself with, "Well, we don't want to lose a customer!", to which one of the irate bartenders shot back, "We want to lose this kind of customer!"

Amazingly, there are people on Twitter defending this behavior, by going, "Well, this is a formative experience for kids, and this will make them want to go to theaters more often, because it's something you can't get at home!", which leaves me agog. It's one thing to spontaneously laugh, clap or cheer at a great moment in a movie theater (that's one of the great pleasures of going to the movies, as opposed to watching them at home alone on your couch), it's quite another to act like you're on a coke bender and trash the room, like football fans turning over cars and knocking over street lights and smashing windows after their team wins. All I know is, if I were in a movie and suddenly a pack of feral tweens started up something like this and a bucket of popcorn or half-full cup of soda caromed off the side of my head, I'd storm out and demand a refund. And even if you're not in a screening where this is occurring, imagine if you're sitting through a rare movie for adults (like the recent Black Bag, maybe, or this weekend's forthcoming The Amateur), and during a quiet, dialogue-driven scene, suddenly you hear "CHICKEN JOCKEY...!!!" bleeding through the wall, accompanied by shrill screaming and laughter?

[Monterey Jack]

[Monterey Jack]

Someone is going to die in one of the screenings, I swear to God.

[AndyDursin]

Just stupidity at its most rampant.

[Monterey Jack]

Just stupidity at its most rampant.

When some employee insists that he searches my backpack the next time I go to the movies, I'm blaming these a$$holes.

[AndyDursin]

TBH to play devils advocate, the flipside is nobody is shooting one another or getting hurt. As idiotic as it is, its the modern day equivalent of a caffeteria food fight from Animal House, with the "added bonus" of social media engagement. If thats what this audience wants then so be it. Its not my crowd or a movie I would ever want to watch. Its not like theyre doing this to a movie that doesnt INVITE that kind of engagement because the director loves it:




They can also absorb the clean up costs when theyre making money again. At this point the cinema owners are desperate and happy anybody is showing up.

[Monterey Jack]

TBH to play devils advocate, the flipside is nobody is shooting one another or getting hurt.

Did you not watch the video where idiots are shooting off FIREWORKS inside of a confined screening room?!

[AndyDursin]

Yes but thats extreme and I dont think thats happening much of the time. Sounds like its MOSTLY just fan interaction/some nuts going over the top and recording themselves flinging around popcorn. Is there a single arrest or report of a fight etc?

Either way its not stopping anyone from going apparently:

[AndyDursin]

Like i said theyre just full on embracing the interaction as part of the appeal now.