When Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle arrived in theaters in 2017, its star-power hierarchy seemed clear: The movie would reteam Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart, both dependable box office performers, after their hit comedy Central Intelligence, and place them in a franchise with some millennial nostalgia value. Yes, Jack Black and Karen Gillan filled out the movie’s central quartet and made it feel sufficiently stacked, rather than another mere Johnson/Hart buddy comedy, but clearly the stars of recent hits like San Andreas and Ride Along were the main attraction.
Seven and a half years later, that picture doesn’t look so clear. Johnson is still a big name, but he’s tarnished his brand with too many chintzy mediocrities like Red One. Hart is one of those multi-platform streaming-entrepreneur guys, which means he doesn’t make a lot of real movies anymore, but he can definitely try to sell you an energy drink at some point. And the Jumanji costar riding highest right now is undeniably Jack Black, who just scored a huge opening weekend at the box office with A Minecraft Movie. It outdrew the previous record for video-game movie openings, held by The Super Mario Bros. Movie, featuring the voice of… yes, Jables himself. In between those records, he helped buoy Kung Fu Panda 4 to big numbers last year.
Of course, vocal performances don’t really count the same as full-bodied appearances in terms of box office draws. Only with Black, you could make a case that they almost do, because Po the Panda and Bowser from Mario both borrow so much from his merrily bellowing wild-enthusiast persona (and, in Bowser’s case, singing chops). Regardless, Minecraft puts Black front and center in a starring live-action role as the game’s everyman Steve, and while the immense popularity of the game itself is obviously responsible for the lion’s share of the movie’s success, it’s hard to think of a star better-suited to add value to this kid-targeted smash. Yes, even Dwayne Johnson. (Case in point: The tough-guy-acting-silly role in Minecraft is capably filled by Jason Momoa instead.)
It’s not as if Black has spent his time between Jumanjis and cartoons out-earning his co-stars and building a portfolio of megahits. In fact, he doesn’t spend all that much time with his face on the biggest of screens. In recent years, he’s made movies with indie auteurs Gus Van Sant and Richard Linklater (and the latter gave him an unseen narrator role), done a few cameos, and continued to record and perform with his decidedly not-for-kids comedy rock band Tenacious D (though the band recently paused their activity after Black’s bestie Kyle Gass made an impromptu anti-Trump joke). But at this point, his career has lasted so long that he has a steady supply of back-catalog kid-friendly movies (Goosebumps; Nacho Libre, with Minecraft director Jared Hess), plus genuine classics like School of Rock and Tropic Thunder. He’s essentially built a system where a movie-watcher could age from five to 50, watching along with his movies as they go from all-ages talking-animal romps to videogame-obsessed silliness to teenager-friendly comedies all the way up to the rock nostalgia of the Tenacious D movie and his forays into more grown-up parts in movies like High Fidelity and Linklater’s Bernie. He’s a genuine all-ages star.
Black has accomplished this without nearly the strenuousness of either Johnson or Hart, who make rise-and-grind hustle a part of their sometimes-off-putting public image. (The problem with selling yourself as a high-achieving, always-hustling go-getter is that you look like kind of a dumbass if you’re expending all of that sweat just to make, like, Black Adam or The Man from Toronto.) What he’s achieved instead is a more organic form of dedication.
Despite his lack of grindset preaching, Black never looks as if he’s not trying; in everything from his Saturday Night Live appearances to his press tours to anytime he’s asked to sing any kind of song, he looks like he’s giving it his all, and delighting in the fact that he gets to do this for a living. Since he gained notice as an obsessive, dismissive, and passionately irritating record-store clerk in High Fidelity, he’s had a way with tapping into childishness, whether through petulance or wide-eyed delight. (Part of his High Fidelity genius is the way his petulance becomes a twisted form of delight.) You believe him as a man happily obsessed with the minutiae of Minecraft – and for a few hours at a time, Black, in middle age no less, brings a child’s boundless energy into an adult’s body, a less literal replication of what he does in his Jumanji roles. In his infectious way, he’s giving kids hope for the future.
Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn podcasting at www.sportsalcohol.com. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others.
The post With ‘A Minecraft Movie,’ Jack Black Has Attained the Career Dwayne Johnson Seems to Want appeared first on Decider.
