Knuckles (2024)
7/10
Fun little watch in-between movies, but a few major issues
27 April 2024
Warning: Spoilers
Knuckles is finally here after several delays, and my thoughts on are just about the same as the movies: Not bad, but so much potential. Knuckles isn't a bad show, don't get me wrong. There's just so much more it could do better.

Plot: Knuckles the Echidna, after the events of the second STH movie, is having trouble adjusting to his new life in Green Hills, and longs for action. When he hears about Wade needing help to train for an upcoming bowling championship, he rises to the task of becoming his trainer and mentor. Along the way, Knuckles and Wade learn more about each other and, after predicament and predicament, become friends and understand each other deeper, learning what makes a true hero.

First things first, this is barely the Knuckles show, more like the Wade show with Knuckles tagging along for laughs and action scenes and stuff. They focused on Wade so heavily throughout the show, it actually started making me mad. I tuned in for a show about Knuckles. By the time episode 3 rolled around, the show started using Knuckles as an outlet for the audience to learn more about Wade, when there could've been a decent balance of both sides. This is the same issue that plagues the movies (more specifically the first one more than the second). Too. Much. Human. Stuff.

The comedy is okay at best. Again, like the movies, it's too da/\/\n childish, though I guess that makes sense when your main character is Wade. Everything that could be emotionally touching gets ruined instantly by a terrible joke. I'm pretty sure the only one I laughed at was a ball joke from Wade's sister in episode 3 I think, but I guess that just goes to show the brainrot I have 💀

Not that it has to be a one-to-one accurate project, but this show is trying so hard to untie itself from the larger franchise. I swear, the SCU must hate its source material or some shlt because even the Transformers movies, generic explosion gun military action movies, do better jobs at incorporating source material in meaningful ways than this franchise does, and I'm not even that big a Sonic fan (anymore, at least). There are some good uses, like the inclusion of Pachacamak, the knuckles sign in the first episode, the flames of disaster, the Ice Cap ice gear house, and a couple other small things, but more often than not, the show ignores the fact that it's title character is a SONIC character. Most people tune in for the Sonic shlt.

The action is, as you'd expect from this franchise so far, awesome. There were so many cool moments of Knuckles just destroying shlt. There's this one cool scene in the third episode of Knuckles and Wade's mom just beating the shlt out of some bounty hunters, and it's in like an entire one minute shot that rotates around from the perspective of the dining table, and the entire time I was so impressed.

The villains are awful, I'm sorry 💀 I don't understand the thought process behind including them. Kid Cudi and the British woman were alright, average at best, but "The Buyer" was terrible 😂 generic evil-for-the-sake-of-being-evil exile from G. U. N. Is mad because he is, and he wants Knuckles powers because he does. There's probably more to it than that, but he had no presence at all, so I wasn't listening to a word he was saying whenever he was on-screen.

One thing I do appreciate about the show is the development. Knuckles goes from being completely lost in Green Hills in the first episode to accepting his new home in the last episode, and the transition is very gradual as he learns about basic Earth ways and just settling down from episode to episode, and even Wade's story and development made me(almost) feel for him, and they even tried to pull a "you and I aren't so different after all" thing with Knuckles and Wade with the whole 'father abandoning him' and 'not belonging' thing, which could've been executed better, but the seeds were there.

All in all, while there are other things that bug me about this show, it does its job for the most part, which is to bridge the gap between the second and third movies, the latter of which is coming out later on this year. Fun show, but it could've done a lot better in some areas. I give it a 7.3/10. I recommend checking it out.
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