Ten years after being forced to flee his home planet, blue superspeeded Hedgehog Sonic (Ben Schwartz) now lives in secret in the small town of Green Hills, Montana. After one day inadvertently tapping into his powers triggering an electromagnetic pulse, this brings the attention of U.S. Government who sends in genius scientist Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) to investigate and deal with the anomaly. Now hunted by Robotnik's drones Sonic enlists the help of Green Hills Sheriff, Tom Wachowski (James Marsden), to helptravel across the United States so he can avoid capture.
First appearing on video game consoles back in 1991, Sonic became an instant success for both Sega and their 16-bit video game console the Genesis/Mega Drive. Sonic even helped Sega eclipse sales of competitor Nintendo (albeit in brief spurts) and lead to well received sequels and an expanded media franchise that still runs strong to this day with long running comics and multiple TV series having been produced. A movie had been in various stages of development from 1994 onward with iterations of the project coming close to fruition at MGM and Dreamworks, but conflicting visions and fleeting success with films such as Super Mario Bros. and Street Fighter resulted in the project stalling. The film began serious development back in 2013 and even with the commitment it was slow going for the blue speedster with original distributor Columbia getting cold feet and selling the project in a turnaround to Paramount (who was eager to bulk up franchises in the wake of their faltering Transformers and Star Trek films). Then of course there was Sonic's design/redesign which was so reviled by everyone the movie was delayed to fix the look. Against all odds, the movie is actually quite good.
While the movie is certainly a family film (with some of the types of humor that entails), the movie does have a charm and sweetness to it that makes itself very endearing. Ben Schwartz is effectively energetic as Sonic and brings to the forefront the character's good natured penchant for mischief and adventure that makes him such a fun protagonist. In many ways he still captures the attitudes carried from the decade of his introduction that could also be seen in similar properties like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Swat Kats, and many other properties from the era. While Sonic's attitude is definitely in line with his persona, the movie does a good job making him a character with depth. When we first see Sonic as a child it's in a flashback sequence on his home planet where a tribe of Echidnas (a reference to the lore of the games) tries to capture him and his Guardian, an Owl named Longclaw, is presumably killed in the process trying to help him escape to Earth. It's a really well done sequence that establishes the stakes quite well and creates a nice emotional core to build the movie around. We see Sonic's isolation as he hides from the sight of Green Hills' citizenry (save for a hermit who's the only one who knows Sonic exists but no one believes) and how he watches them from a far pretending to be friends with them and giving them nicknames like "Donut Lord" for Tom or "Pretzel Lady" for Tom's wife Maddie (Tika Sumpter). It's both a very funny and surprisingly sweet take on the character.
The human characters in the movie are also quite good. Both Tom and Maddie are really sweet as a married couple and have great chemistry and comic timing together. Tom is also great as a foil for Sonic once the two end up teaming up together and is not only a well done proxy for the audience to get more well versed in Sonic's universe, but he's also a good man with ambition who genuinely wants to help people and feels like he can't do that in his job as a small town Sheriff. There's some really nice exchanges between Sonic and Tom as they go across country getting into various misadventures involving not just Robotnik's drones but also road movie trappings like tourist traps and tough bars that are one accident shove away from breaking into a full on fight. Which brings us to Dr. Robotnik. Jim Carrey is amazing as our villain. An arrogant misanthrope with a Superiority complex and a general contempt for all humanity, Carrey does an amazing job of bringing to life Robotnik. As the movie goes on he becomes more visually similar to his video game counter part in aesthetics, but even if he didn't it'd still be an amazing performance. Carrey's performance is somewhere between his performance as The RIddler from Batman Forever and the cable guy from The Cable Guy. It's not as silly as the riddler nor is it as creepy as the cable guy and strikes just the right note to make a threat but a very entertaining threat we love to hate.
The plot of the movie is very standard fare as it plays like a PG version of the Simon Pegg/Nick Frost movie Paul as filtered through the lens of a lighter superhero movie like Deadpool or the Quicksilver scenes from the X-Men movies. In contrast to a lot of big budget movies with characters who are super powered, I liked how the climax and the movie as a whole was more dialed back in scale and scope and didn't rely on many trappings such as sky portals or citywide destruction and instead went a more personal route with its stakes. But while I personally liked the smaller scale approach to the material, I can imagine there will be others who will feel it wasn't an adequate pay off to what cam before.
Sonic is not only a solid video game movie, it's a solid movie. It's well cast with charming leads, a really good performance by Jim Carrey as our villain, and fun and creative usage of Sonic's super speed that leads to both big laughs and exciting action sequences. while the movie follows a predictable path and some of the humor flirts with being juvenile, it's a solid film that can be enjoyed by most family members are will entertain both newcomers to the franchise and long time fans.
*Also note there is post credit scene establishing potential threads for the sequel
First appearing on video game consoles back in 1991, Sonic became an instant success for both Sega and their 16-bit video game console the Genesis/Mega Drive. Sonic even helped Sega eclipse sales of competitor Nintendo (albeit in brief spurts) and lead to well received sequels and an expanded media franchise that still runs strong to this day with long running comics and multiple TV series having been produced. A movie had been in various stages of development from 1994 onward with iterations of the project coming close to fruition at MGM and Dreamworks, but conflicting visions and fleeting success with films such as Super Mario Bros. and Street Fighter resulted in the project stalling. The film began serious development back in 2013 and even with the commitment it was slow going for the blue speedster with original distributor Columbia getting cold feet and selling the project in a turnaround to Paramount (who was eager to bulk up franchises in the wake of their faltering Transformers and Star Trek films). Then of course there was Sonic's design/redesign which was so reviled by everyone the movie was delayed to fix the look. Against all odds, the movie is actually quite good.
While the movie is certainly a family film (with some of the types of humor that entails), the movie does have a charm and sweetness to it that makes itself very endearing. Ben Schwartz is effectively energetic as Sonic and brings to the forefront the character's good natured penchant for mischief and adventure that makes him such a fun protagonist. In many ways he still captures the attitudes carried from the decade of his introduction that could also be seen in similar properties like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Swat Kats, and many other properties from the era. While Sonic's attitude is definitely in line with his persona, the movie does a good job making him a character with depth. When we first see Sonic as a child it's in a flashback sequence on his home planet where a tribe of Echidnas (a reference to the lore of the games) tries to capture him and his Guardian, an Owl named Longclaw, is presumably killed in the process trying to help him escape to Earth. It's a really well done sequence that establishes the stakes quite well and creates a nice emotional core to build the movie around. We see Sonic's isolation as he hides from the sight of Green Hills' citizenry (save for a hermit who's the only one who knows Sonic exists but no one believes) and how he watches them from a far pretending to be friends with them and giving them nicknames like "Donut Lord" for Tom or "Pretzel Lady" for Tom's wife Maddie (Tika Sumpter). It's both a very funny and surprisingly sweet take on the character.
The human characters in the movie are also quite good. Both Tom and Maddie are really sweet as a married couple and have great chemistry and comic timing together. Tom is also great as a foil for Sonic once the two end up teaming up together and is not only a well done proxy for the audience to get more well versed in Sonic's universe, but he's also a good man with ambition who genuinely wants to help people and feels like he can't do that in his job as a small town Sheriff. There's some really nice exchanges between Sonic and Tom as they go across country getting into various misadventures involving not just Robotnik's drones but also road movie trappings like tourist traps and tough bars that are one accident shove away from breaking into a full on fight. Which brings us to Dr. Robotnik. Jim Carrey is amazing as our villain. An arrogant misanthrope with a Superiority complex and a general contempt for all humanity, Carrey does an amazing job of bringing to life Robotnik. As the movie goes on he becomes more visually similar to his video game counter part in aesthetics, but even if he didn't it'd still be an amazing performance. Carrey's performance is somewhere between his performance as The RIddler from Batman Forever and the cable guy from The Cable Guy. It's not as silly as the riddler nor is it as creepy as the cable guy and strikes just the right note to make a threat but a very entertaining threat we love to hate.
The plot of the movie is very standard fare as it plays like a PG version of the Simon Pegg/Nick Frost movie Paul as filtered through the lens of a lighter superhero movie like Deadpool or the Quicksilver scenes from the X-Men movies. In contrast to a lot of big budget movies with characters who are super powered, I liked how the climax and the movie as a whole was more dialed back in scale and scope and didn't rely on many trappings such as sky portals or citywide destruction and instead went a more personal route with its stakes. But while I personally liked the smaller scale approach to the material, I can imagine there will be others who will feel it wasn't an adequate pay off to what cam before.
Sonic is not only a solid video game movie, it's a solid movie. It's well cast with charming leads, a really good performance by Jim Carrey as our villain, and fun and creative usage of Sonic's super speed that leads to both big laughs and exciting action sequences. while the movie follows a predictable path and some of the humor flirts with being juvenile, it's a solid film that can be enjoyed by most family members are will entertain both newcomers to the franchise and long time fans.
*Also note there is post credit scene establishing potential threads for the sequel