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A.C.E. Page 14 n THE ASIAN REPORTER April 7, 2025 Jason Momoa shines in A Minecraft Movie By Mark Kennedy AP Entertainment Writer he latest IP to be mined into a Hollywood blockbuster is appropriately a video game that celebrates digging: A Minecraft Movie. Like The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Jumanji before it, A Minecraft Movie centers on four misfits who enter a mysterious portal that pulls them into a strange land, this time cubic, like Lego only on shrooms. The Jared Hess-directed action-adven- ture artfully straddles the line between delighting preteen gamers and keeping their parents awake. It’s an often-bananas adaptation, with bizarre digressions into turquoise blouses and tater tot pizzas. It has Jennifer Coolidge being very Jennifer Coolidge. Need we say more? If you’ve never heard of “Minecraft” — or its denizens like Creepers, Piglins, Villagers, and Endermen — you are in big trouble. Consult with the closest 10-year- old immediately. (I have one and he noticed a sweet nod to the late YouTuber Technoblade, an Easter egg of sorts.) The movie is faithful to the world of the game, while adding some things — orbs and crystals — to aid the plot. But if you come in cold and spot pandas and folks punching through earth, you’ll likely side with one human character who says: “This place makes no sense.” Our travellers — a sweet brother and sister (Emma Myers and Sebastian Eugene Hansen), their nutty real estate agent (Danielle Brooks), and a deeply dumb, washed-up pro video game player (Jason Momoa) — are guided by Jack Black, playing an expert crafter named Steve stranded in the world. If it does anything, A Minecraft Movie marks the comedic coming of age of Momoa, who has shown glimpses of his chops in the Aquaman and Fast X movies. But when he’s not on screen in this one, it T leaves the movie slack, which is saying a lot when you have Black being his full-force, over-the-top Black. “There’s no ‘i’ in ‘team’ but there are two ‘i’s in ‘winning,’” Momoa says as Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison, who is fond of fingerless gloves and a Barbie-pink leather jacket with a fringe. In another scene, he notes: “Paper doesn’t grow on trees.” The screenplay written by Chris Bow- man, Hubbel Palmer, Neil Widener, Gavin James, and Chris Galletta is as loosey- goosey as you’d expect from five different voices, with a traditional Marvel-style battle at the end fuelled by plenty of “Let’s do this!” declarations but with a surprisingly goofball first half. Like countless films before it, A Minecraft Movie is all about the quest to go SQUARE ADVENTURE. In these images released by Warner Bros. Pictures, Piglins, top photo, and Jason Momoa, bottom photo, are seen in scenes from A Minecraft Movie. The film, a Jared Hess-directed action-adventure, artfully straddles the line between delighting preteen gamers and keeping their parents awake. (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP) home, which in this case means navigating zombies, skeletons shooting fire-tipped arrows, and a place called The Nether, a perpetually dark hell where horrible creatures mine for gold. For some reason, the ruler there, a piglike witch, has glowing eyes and a British accent. The writers make some “America’s Got Talent” jokes, Black has a few songs — including a bizarre “Steve’s Lava Chicken” — and we spend an inordinate amount of time focused on Momoa’s butt, but it all ends in a dance party. The movie has a Dark Crystal-meets-Transformers vibe, a too-subtle message about financial failure, and something about friendship. The filmmakers do have characters throw eggs — at these prices, is that smart? — but they don’t lean enough into the celebration of creativity this movie seemed to promise when it started. Hollywood’s embrace of gaming has been yielding hits such as HBO’s “The Last of Us” and Amazon Prime Video’s series adaptation of the Microsoft-owned “Fallout.” More adaptations are on the horizon this year: Until Dawn, Mortal Kombat 2, and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2. As for A Minecraft Movie, the advice is this: Come for the Piglins, stay for Momoa, whom you will see spectacularly failing at being bilingual, and jujutsu-ing opponents dressed like a member of Skid Row. It’s everything you ever needed. A Minecraft Movie, a Warner Bros. Pictures release that opened this past Friday, is rated PG for “violence/action, language, suggestive/rude humor, and some scary images.” Running time: 101 minutes. Trump says the U.S. will help in Asia quake. A former official says the system is now in “shambles.” Continued from page 9 At the State Department, spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters the administration would use requests for assistance and reports from the region to shape its response to the quake. “USAID has maintained a team of disaster experts with the capacity to respond if disaster strikes,” Bruce said. “These expert teams provide immediate assistance, including food and safe drinking water needed to save lives in the aftermath of a disaster.” Despite cuts, “there has been no impact on our ability to perform those duties,” Bruce said. But it was also March 28 that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and a former associate of Elon Musk now in a senior position at USAID, Jeremy Lewin, notified staff and congress they were firing most remaining USAID staffers and moving surviving agency programs under the State Department. The Trump administration, working with Musk’s teams, has gutted foreign assistance since Trump took office on January 20. Mass firings and forced leaves and thousands of abrupt contract terminations have thrown much of the global aid and development work into crisis, with U.S. partners scrambling to fill the hole left by USAID and the billions of dollars owed for past work. After an earthquake in 2023 in Turkey and Syria, USAID-backed civilian teams from Los Angeles County and Fairfax County, Virginia, skilled in urban search and rescue scrambled to the scene to help recover any survivors from rubble. Those teams normally can be on their way within as few as 24 hours, Charles said. But while intervention by lawmakers and others kept the contracts for the civilian search-and-rescue teams intact, contracts for the special transport needed to get the search teams, dogs, and heavy equipment to a disaster area are believed to have been cut, Charles said. Meanwhile, staffing cuts at USAID have “decimated” the teams that normally would coordinate with allies to target rescue and response efforts in the field, Charles said. Other foreign assistance contract cuts by the admini- stration have hit disaster-response emergency services with the United Nations and others. AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee contributed. Think twice before bailing out of the stock market, financial advisers say Continued from page 7 “It is hard to roll with the punches when some days you feel like your portfolio is being pummelled,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. “But those moments should pass. A diversified strategy that is thoughtfully adapting to changing circumstances can’t prevent the punches, but it can help soften the blows.” Phil Battin, CEO of Ambassador Wealth Management, advises investors to make sure they diversify their investments across regions and sectors to reduce risk. He says to lean towards “resilient sectors such as consumer staples, utilities, and healthcare, which are less reliant on international trade.” I just started investing in stocks. What should I do? The proliferation of online trading platforms and the ease of smartphones has helped create a new generation of investors who may not be used to such volatility. But the good news is younger investors often have the gift of time. With decades to go until retirement, they can afford to ride the waves and let their stock portfolios hopefully recover before compounding and eventually growing even bigger. Stephen Kates, financial analyst at Bankrate, says “now is not the time to make emotional decisions.” Young investors should “re-anchor to your (long-term) goals,” and consider using a financial advisor to help navigate uncertain times. “Investors with ample time to stay invested should remember how lucrative patience has been over the last 15 years,” Kates said. What if I’m near retirement? Older investors have less time than younger ones to allow their investments to bounce back. But even in retirement, some people will need their investments to last 30 years or more, said Niladri “Neel” Mukherjee, chief investment officer of TIAA Wealth Management. People who have already retired may want to cut back on spending and withdrawals after sharp market downturns, because bigger withdrawals will remove more potential compounding ability in the future. But even retirees, at least in the early part of retirement, should still be invested in stocks to prepare for the possibility of decades of spending ahead. “You may want to slow that down and pick that back up once the market recovers,” Mukherjee said, “but it all comes down to having that conversation with your adviser and your portfolio manager.” How long will this last? No one knows, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Have a safe & prosperous Year of the Snake! January 29, 2025 to February 16, 2026 Our Lunar New Year special edition was published on January 6, 2025. To download a copy, visit us online at <www.asianreporter.com>.
