There used to be a surefire bet that every film or TV adaptation of a video game franchise was absolutely doomed to be garbage. The Resident Evil movie series, the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Doom and countless other adaptations were nothing short of travesties, and it was regarded as something of a curse for decades. You just couldn't successfully and faithfully convert a video game into a film with a coherent plot. There were a few slight exceptions to this rule. The Street Fighter II anime film was pretty solid - yes, that Street Fighter movie. Also the Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, F-Zero: GP Legend and Sonic X TV series from the early 2000s were quite good. Obviously the long-running Pokemon anime was great as well. Recently though, it has become surprisingly common for video game adaptations to succeed. It seems like the curse has finally been broken.
Sonic the Hedgehog, despite all odds, is one of these successful adaptations. The Sonic series has a zealous, devoted, strange fanbase that has put up with a franchise mired in mediocrity. Some games in the series are beloved and hailed as all time greats, while other games in the series are regarded as some of the very worst games of all time. It is a franchise of high highs and lows that are so low that they knock on the doors to Hell itself. This first Sonic film manages to land somewhere in the realm of being completely fine - maybe a seven out of ten, if I had to put a score on it; which for a video game to film adaptation, is a roaring success.
It has to be stated loudly and clearly that both this film and the entire game franchise are absolutely aimed at children, no matter what the primarily adult fanbase says. There are moments of darkness in the series (Shadow's origin story comes to mind), but the cute, anthropomorphic animal characters and goofy, childish sense of humor clearly indicate that the series is intended to be for the elementary school-aged audience. So if you approach this film from the angle that it's aimed at ten year olds, you'll come away maybe appreciating it a bit more. It's no The Lion King, but I'd say it's better than whatever slop Disney's been pushing for the last decade.
Sonic the Hedgehog is genuinely a fun movie. It's heartwarming, cute, funny and has some great action sequences. One of the things that I most enjoyed about the film is that it is an adaptation of the overall Sonic franchise, so it's not trying to necessarily adapt the plot of the video games or the comics or anything. The story takes our titular blue hog and introduces a multi-dimensional tale that has Sonic transported to Earth from his home world. Specifically, he lands in the cheekily named town of Green Hills, Montana where he lives for several years before meeting the affable Tom Wachowski, a local cop, played by James Marsden. Tom and his wife Maddie, a veterinarian, are planning to move to San Francisco soon, a baffling move in my opinion. I'd take Montana over San Francisco any day of the week, but alas, I'm not Tom, and San Francisco probably isn't a hellhole in this movie's continuity.
One day, Sonic runs so fast that it causes some sort of an EMP blast across an entire swath of the USA. Needless to say, the American government and military are now investigating the cause, and hire the help of the bizarre and eccentric scientist Ivo Robotnik, played wonderfully by Jim Carrey. Sonic knows that he will be discovered and caught if he sticks around, so he plans to leave Earth using a golden ring, the same device that he initially used to get to Earth. Robotnik arrives in Green Hills, and upon discovering the immense power, and therefore potential, held in Sonic's quills, brands Tom a domestic terrorist and begins a cross country chase of Sonic and his human ally.
I don't want to spoil the entire story, only to give a rough outline of the plot. This setup, with Robotnik chasing Tom and Sonic from Montana to San Francisco, creates a fun, buddy comedy, road trip kind of tone for the middle chunk of the story. Sonic is obsessed with American culture from years of watching movies through Tom and Maddie's window (before they knew he existed) and he wishes to experience as much of it as he can, creating something of a bucket list in the process. The film doesn't get to explore much of this idea, as it's obviously aimed at children and a bucket list isn't really a concept familiar to children, and the movie needs to put action scenes in as well, which doesn't leave much downtime for character development. Regardless, the few characters in the film are each charming and serve their role well. James Marsden and Tika Sumpter (Maddie's actress) play a cute couple and ground the movie in a much needed way; serving as a counterbalance of sorts to the heavy usage of CGI for Sonic and all of the action sequences. Jim Carrey was a total delight as Robotnik, and it felt like he enjoyed playing the role. He chewed the scenery in the best way, playing the comically evil mastermind role with aplomb, and I think turned in his best performance since the 1990s.
Famously, this movie had a disastrous first trailer. An eldritch, humanoid Sonic design was shown off, skeeving out basically everyone who saw it. Miraculously, the designers busted their butts and created the much better current design for Sonic - one that actually looks like the character. I believe that if they had not corrected his design and left it as is, the movie would not have received any sequels. It likely would've made money from adults who just wanted to see it for the laugh factor, but I'm sure the reviews would've absolutely shredded the film. Fortunately, that wasn't the reality that we saw. The film came out to fine reviews, and made a nice profit at the box office; setting the stage for what has now turned into a full blown film franchise with three movies and a streaming series.
I've touched a few times on the action sequences in Sonic the Hedgehog but I'd like to spend a little more time fangirling about these scenes, because they're some of the most entertaining in the film. Most movies that have characters capable of "super speed" have great slow-motion scenes, and Sonic is no different. There's an homage to the iconic Quicksilver scene from X-Men: Days of Future Past in the midst of a biker gang bar fight. Also, skirmishes against Robotnik's various drones, robots and vehicles create some excellent set pieces in the second half of the movie; the high-speed fight on San Francisco's Transamerica Building comes to mind. The CGI is quite good in the film too. I couldn't quite pick out what was totally CGI and what might've utilized some practical effects, especially with Robotnik's equipment. One complaint I have about the action scenes is about Sonic's speed - it is incredibly inconsistent. For comedic effect, Sonic can run across the entire country and back in a couple of seconds, but in the entire final battle against Robotnik, Sonic can barely outrun his hovercraft. I wish they could've found a different way for Robotnik to combat Sonic, perhaps through outsmarting him or something. Or maybe he utilized Sonic's quill to harvest energy to be able to move much faster and keep up with him, but we just never saw that. It wasn't a huge complaint that took me out of the movie or anything, but it was noticeable that Sonic was conveniently much slower in the fight against Robotnik.
Ultimately, I really enjoyed Sonic the Hedgehog. I watched it by myself back when it first came to streaming, and then watched it again recently with my two year old, and still found myself having a good time with the film. It is a much more enjoyable experience with a child, I believe. I've also seen the sequel, which I will review eventually. I remember liking it even more than this first film, as the introduction of Tails and Knuckles really helped it feel much more like a true Sonic property. I have yet to see the third film or the Knuckles TV show, but plan to see both, as I heard great things about them. I look forward to whatever else Sega has in mind for the Sonic film franchise. It seems that they've cracked the code for a successful (both critically and financially) series. Maybe they'll surprise us all and do a Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg movie next. Fingers crossed.
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