Sonic the Hedgehog has been a popular video game character, featured in various games, cartoon series, and comic books. It probably wasn’t really a surprise he got his own live action movie. But movies based on video games don’t exactly have a history of being all that good. Will Sonic’s history in other media possibly mitigate that possibility?
Considering the radically different look Sonic had after his first trailer, we can at least guess the people making the property enough to try to make something the fans might like. And, quite frankly, this weekend is a bit busy after last week’s one big release, so let’s see how it turned out.
After a brief animated prologue showing how superfast talking alien hedgehog Sonic (voice of Ben Schwartz) got to Earth in the first place, we cut ahead ten years. Sonic has been living in secret right outside the town of Green Hills, Montana. He’s got a cave to live in with a collection of stuff, occasionally spending time messing around the town, mostly by observing the Doughnut Lord (local sheriff Tom, played by James Marsden) and the Pretzel Lady (sheriff’s wife, local veterinarian, and yoga practitioner Maddie played by Tika Sumpter). One night, Sonic opts to play an entire game of baseball by himself, and after a quick bout of lonely depression, lets off an EMP of some kind that shorts out the power for miles around. That gets the attention of the U,S. government, and they dispatch Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) to find out what happened.
Sonic, desperate, goes to the Doughnut Lord Tom for help, and the two flee from the arrogant master of technology Robotnik. Sonic needs to get his rings back in order to escape to another world, and that means the two hit the road with Robotnik behind them the entire time.
Sonic the Hedgehog isn’t the most original of movies. The plot hits all the expected beats as Sonic and Tom bond on their adventure before they work together to stop Robotnik. But there’s a lot to like here. Sonic is a charming, kid-friendly character appropriate for a kid-friendly movie. He and Tom bounce off each other well, and the movie has a lot of clever depictions of Sonic’s speed. Sonic’s baseball game, for example, works well at showing Sonic playing multiple roles more or less simultaneously.
But then there’s Dr. Robotnik. Carrey hasn’t had a purely comedic role in a while, and in many ways, his performance is a throwback to his earlier break-out roles. Robotnik is arrogant, holds himself as superior to everyone he meets, and Carrey clearly relishes every second of it. He seems to be having fun here, as does the rest of the cast.
Really, this turned out a lot better than I hoped it could have. It was fun, good for kids, and had a lot of nice moments. Sure, the plot may be nothing original, but it played what I’d seen before rather well. Carrey alone will make it worth the price of admission for his longtime fans, and hey, there is a mid-credits sequel hook. I think we may finally have a good, but not great, movie based on a video game.
Grade: B
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