Sonic the Hedgehog 3: They Finally Got It Right
As a lifelong Sonic fan, this movie put a smile on my face.
Sometimes, media critics have to be honest about their biases when approaching certain projects they write about. For me, the Sonic the Hedgehog films are ones I have to explain my background with. I was a movie kid and a comic kid, video games came in second place for me. I casually played some games but I would never considered myself an expert. They didn’t hold my attention as much as a good book or a good movie. However, Sonic the Hedgehog was my franchise. Something about that blue hedgehog and his friends resonated with me a lot as a kid. I was fully into the comics, the games and knew the extended lore fairly well. Sonic Adventure Battle 2 in particular is one of my favorite games ever and was a childhood staple for me. However, the Sonic films have done little to nothing for me. I loathed the first film, it felt like an Alvin and the Chipmunks movie that they threw Sonic into. The second film, while a marginal improvement, left a lot to be desired for me as well. The films felt too jokey and schlocky for me, and I understand the franchise is trying to appeal to a much younger demographic than myself- but, I saw a rich lore within this franchise just waiting to be explored well by a filmmaker. With the success with the first two films however, I gave up on this franchise. This movies weren’t for me and maybe that’s okay. Even with the introduction with fan favorite character Shadow the Hedgehog, I just didn’t believe the film would do him the justice he deserved. Thankfully, this film exceeded my expectations - I saw a good Sonic film in theatres and I couldn’t be happier.
The film stars our newly formed Sonic team. Sonic the Hedgehog, Tails and Knuckles are now friends. They are recruited to take down Shadow the Hedgehog, who has been locked up for over fifty years after experiencing a personal tragedy. It’s up to Sonic and his friends to stop Shadow and Gerald Robotnik, Dr. Robotnik’s grandfather, from destroying the planet. The plot is nothing too original, it’s a simple set up to get our heroes together to save the day. The film spends hardly any time setting up the action - we are brought into this film really fast. This is appreciated for Sonic the Hedgehog, which in the past has spent so much of the plot setting up Sonic and his relationship to the human characters. Thankfully, this Sonic movie cuts a lot of the human aspects of the film and mostly focuses on lore from the original games which helps the momentum of this movie a lot.
One of the things that impressed me the most about this movie was Jeff Fowler’s direction. In the first two Sonic films, he shot these films like a sitcom, it was competent filmmaking but nothing truly innovative. He has taken a step forward in Sonic 3 - this is one of the best looking films of the year. The special effects and CGI work here is beautiful and the action set pieces are immaculate. There is a motorcycle chase sequence fifteen minutes into the movie that has my mouth agape the entire time. It reminded me of the first time seeing the train catch in Spider-Man 2 - it was staggering. The action scenes in this film gave me the type of adrenaline rush that Marvel’s best films used to do. They are lively, fun and well choreographed.
The way the film handles Shadow’s storyline I found to be really well done. The writers here made a really smart decision and played Shadow completely straight. He doesn’t make jokes or winks at the camera. He is a character rooted in pain and longing and the film slows down to analyze his own personal trauma. His relationship with a human girl named Maria (us Sonic fans know when she’s introduced it’s going to get dark) was emotionally poignant and tragic. Sequences of Shadow and Maria looking up in the stars and talking about friendship and connection was enough to bring tears in my eyes. The first two movies never even get close to getting any sort of emotional response from me but this film decided to take a darker approach and for that it pays off.
The film has thematic resonance of not letting pain or loss get the best parts of you- not letting trauma change you. Making the right decisions, even in the worst of times where it’s so easy to get enraged and act on emotional impulses. The film even goes into how the way we react to trauma can be rooted in our upbringing and the team we choose to attach ourselves to. There’s a soulful conversation between Sonic and Shadow in one moment where the film actually lets them talk and grow as people and the film doesn’t feel like it needs to cut away to a joke to keep the audiences attention. It’s a miracle!
The movie however isn’t perfect. The one thing that brings this movie down is the humor- which does take away from the momentum of some scenes. I will say, the humor in the first two movies got no laughter from me but in this film there are jokes that made me chuckle and one that got an audible laugh. But they are hit and miss mostly. Some of the more topical jokes and some of Sonic’s constant jabbering still gets a little tedious, even if it’s reigned in a little better this time around. Jim Carrey once again gives a committed performance as Robotnik and this time around he played Robotnik’s grandfather as well. However, his jokey bits took away from the overall emotional resonance some scenes could have had. Robotnik does have a compelling character arc this time around that makes him way more interesting of a character than he has been in the past, but some of his jokier Deadpool inspired bits became a little too much for me.
I understand Sonic is a humorous character and these movies should reflect that- but I hope in future installments the humor becomes a little sharper. This film flirted with some clever jabs and I hope they continue to go down that route in the future installments while making the stakes higher and making the lore darker. In the second act, the human characters do come to play and do a comedic sequence in a Government facility that really didn’t work for me and threw off the otherwise solid pacing of the film. Thankfully their contributions are minimal but they still feel ultimately useless in the film - only there to create an emotional crutch for Sonic and the human world he inhabits. Hopefully Sonic 4 continues to go down the route of focusing more on the hedgehogs and the Sonic lore because when the film focuses on those aspects, they are excelling.
As a lifelong Sonic fan, this film is a blast. There’s so many little in jokes from the games (specifically Sonic Adventure 2) that has me grinning. A certain needle drop in one moment that made me gasp in the theatre. It’s just a great time at the movies. If you aren’t a Sonic fan, I can see this film loosing a bit of that wow factor for you, but I think there’s enough spectacle to make it a fun watch. While the pacing in the middle portion and some of the jokes take away some of the films breathless spectacle in the first and last act, the positives outweigh the negatives here. Making this in my opinion, the first good live action Sonic movie! This is one of the most fun times I’ve had in theatres this year, it’s a fun and action packed family movie with some solid themes about wrestling with trauma that resonate in a way that snuck up on me. It’s not a perfect movie, but for the third installment of a franchise I haven’t liked to be this major of a step up in quality is kinda a miracle. Inherent bias aside of being so happy to see a lot of this Sonic stuff on screen for the first time, I think it’s still a solid family movie if you’ve never played any of the games before.
