Introduction
To be frank, I thought Sonic The Hedgehog was okay. To me, it’s the kind of movie I use mostly for the company – a kind of forgettable flick that my friend and I can talk about and pull apart and reference like the huge nerds we are.
If you have small children and are okay with exposing them to the electric blue of James Marsden’s eyes (and Sonic’s fur), then go ahead and watch it with them! It’ll be a fun afternoon; you could go play billiards somewhere after.
Characters and Performances
As an adult, you’ll probably get a kick out of Jim Carrey going absolutely hamfisted with his overboard portrayal of Eggman. It’s a little cringeworthy at times, but I have a pretty low tolerance for these things anyway.
Sidenote, did anyone else pick up some consensual nudge nudge, wink wink undertones between Eggman and his henchman? The sidekick is played by the delightful Lee Majdoub, by the way. Check him out, he’s been in some good stuff. I highly recommend Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency if you haven’t seen it (the first season anyway).
Right, if it seems like I’m dancing around the actual topic of the review – that’s because I don’t have a lot to say about it.
The simple fact is that while the movie is fine, the blue blur’s live-action cinematic debut already feels dated only a few months after its release. The story itself is nothing to write home about, but you’ll probably get a laugh or two out of some of the jokes. There are a few shining moments, some genuine character interactions, and well-timed high-speed action beats, but it never manages to break into anything extraordinary.
If you do go see it with your kids, it’ll at LEAST model some fairly healthy relationship dynamics, compliments of the sheriff’s wife. Tina Sumpter by the way, who plays Maddie Wachowski; she’s also been in good stuff. Check out Final Space if you haven’t.
Ben Schwartz does a passable job voice-acting one of gaming’s most iconic characters, but his portrayal is one-note to the extreme. Energetic, playful, a little ADHD at times.
Aside from a couple of angry outbursts, there wasn’t a whole lot for Schwartz to DO in the film; which is a shame because I KNOW he’s got the comedic chops to have made this genuinely funny. The script just didn’t give him anything to work with.
As for Sonic himself, the most interesting thing about his character was the controversy surrounding his original look. I AM happy with the design they ended up with, mostly because the film relies heavily on you finding Sonic to be cute. If they went for that monstrous abomination they bandied about in the original adverts, this movie would have gone from mediocre to terrible faster than Sonic himself.
Plot and Setting
If you’ve come into this having been a fan of the video games and know a lot of obscure esoterica about Sonic, you also might get a kick out of the film. There are lots of little in-jokes and winks to the fans, references to games, etc. Obviously stay till the end of the credits as Marvel’s Law dictates (which you should do anyway, a lot of people work really hard to make these films. Shout out to the production crews!).
You might also watch this movie and fly into a foaming rage… But, some people will inevitably do that to anything and everything. To be fair there’s a fair amount to be miffed about. Like the harshly blatant product placement, and that’s coming from a guy who was okay with the Krispy Kreme ads in Power Rangers!
The decision to set the film on Earth as opposed to a fully realized Sonic world might also aggravate viewers. Even the brief glimpse into Sonic’s world at the beginning of the film made me wish they’d just done the whole film in fully realized CGI.
Conclusion
While Sonic is a fast-paced and mostly fun escapade, it does not have enough force to keep up with some of its competitors. The actors will get a nice fat paycheck, and all move on to better things. It’s a perfectly adequate way to spend an afternoon, but you could find better.
