Jared Hess has a good eye for awkward men with unreasonable confidence. We value that oddness, but his Minecraft film shows how easily his humour gets crowded out when a film has too much else to organise.
Fi1m perspective
In his Minecraft film (2025), Jason Momoa's Garrett runs a failing games shop and has not got over being an arcade champion. That gap between his present circumstances and his opinion of himself is familiar territory for Jared Hess. His comedies keep returning to men with considerably more confidence than reason. We laughed at Garrett because Momoa makes that misplaced confidence funny without much help from the dialogue. These are the moments when Hess seems the right director for the job; elsewhere, this uneven film gives us ample reason to doubt it.
Napoleon Dynamite (2004), his feature debut, established the deadpan approach, with Jerusha Hess sharing the writing. Nacho Libre (2006) continued his interest in men whose confidence exceeds any reasonable justification for it. His work with Jerusha continued on Gentlemen Broncos (2009), which takes up fantasy and authorship. Her recurring contribution matters when discussing what can seem such a personal comic voice. The mixed response to later films, including Gentlemen Broncos, also identifies a persistent risk: awkward behaviour can become repetitive, however affectionately it is presented.
Later came Masterminds (2016) and the co-directed animated film Thelma the Unicorn (2024), before the game adaptation set a different task. Here Hess had to supply a story for a game that did not have one. Five writers receive screenplay credits and three receive story credits; the solution is a familiar portal adventure. Jack Black, who also worked with Hess on Nacho Libre, plays Steve, building and shouting in the Overworld. The noisy fantasy gives Hess less room for his particular humour than the Idaho scenes do.
His recurring interest in creativity and play makes him a sensible choice for this material, which makes the result more disappointing. A game about building whatever one likes has become an adventure that allows little such freedom. The Overworld's blocks give it a look, but the shop and school corridor give Hess something recognisably his to work with. We would approach another large Hess assignment with caution, and rather more interest in its awkward people than its machinery.
Biography
Jared Hess is an American film director, writer and producer. He is known for directing Napoleon Dynamite (2004), Nacho Libre (2006) and Gentlemen Broncos (2009), which he co-wrote with his wife Jerusha Hess.
Hess directed A Minecraft Movie (2025). He has also directed Thelma the Unicorn (2024) and episodes of the television miniseries Muscles & Mayhem: An Unauthorized Story of American Gladiators (2023). He is based in Utah.
