The Sonic the Hedgehog Movies

Gotta go fast has been the motto of the blue blur for years, so I took it upon myself to speedrun the trilogy of Sonic the Hedgehog movies to see if he made the jump to the big screen successfully. Let’s just say it wasn’t graceful at first, but we got there in the end!

Sonic the Hedgehog

Well, uhhh let’s just dive into what happened with this one. This did not feel like a Sonic movie at all. For some reason, they gave us a weird buddy comedy road trip instead. I think the less said about Sonic and his human friends in this one the better, what I’d rather do is talk about Dr. Robotnik.

Oh my god he was so good. Jim Carrey nailed Robotnik to a T and he was the best part of this movie by far. My general take is that when he is on screen this movie is good and when he isn’t this movie is borderline terrible. Sonic seems like a dumb child (but like way too far), his human friend, the “Donut Lord” as Sonic calls him, is just a generic cop going through a midlife crisis, and those are really the only two characters that matter outside of Robotnik.

For me the final nail in the coffin was the amount of literal ad reads in the movie. Zillow, Amazon, Olive Garden, Olive Garden again, why did we need to dedicate so much time to actual commercials. The Olive Garden ad read at the beginning was literally 20 seconds for some reason.

Rating: 4/10 just watch it for Robotnik and move on to the second movie.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Now we’re talking, this felt like an actual Sonic the Hedgehog movie. Now that we are out of the buddy comedy style movie we have a real plot. Top that off with Knuckles making an appearance and you have a recipe for success! This movie felt like an apology for the first one if I’m completely honest. No ad reads (aside from one that was making fun of the first movie), Tails added as Sonic’s partner instead of the human guy who’s name I won’t write in this post cause it doesn’t matter, and the Master Emerald, a real thing from the games (wow what a concept).

Where this film sometimes goes wrong is that it feels disjointed at times with too many plots converging at once at the end. However, once again Robotnik (now being called Eggman) steals the show again and more than makes up for the twisting and turning of the plot threads. Super Sonic at the end was cool too and I really liked the fact that they all became friends and played baseball, which was Sonic’s dream from the first movie, very cute.

Rating: 7/10 a good movie with some minor pacing and plot issues.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3

OOH MAMA, A MASTERPIECE!

If you asked me to create a Sonic and Shadow movie, I don’t think I would do much differently. I grew up on Shadow the Hedgehog for GameCube, that game was my jam. So, when I saw Shadow, holding a gun in a movie for children, I knew I would enjoy this. This movie is a love letter to the Sonic fandom, and also a way to take the best parts of 1 and 2 and make it into one movie.

Double Jim Carrey as both Eggman and Dr. Gerald Robotnik (his grandfather for those keeping score at home) was a genius move. He is such a brilliantly animated actor and having two of him on screen at the same time was delightful. Beyond this, they actually kept the story from the games relatively intact, even the sad and depressing parts of Shadow’s back story were done very well.

The ending sequence is exactly what I wanted from the ending of the first movie. Just Sonic (and Shadow in this case) beating the crap out of some robots while Live and Learn blares in the background. Such a feel-good moment for sonic fans and man this whole movie was a treat. Nearly perfect for a Sonic the Hedgehog adaptation and completely makes me forgive the atrocity of the first movie.

Rating: 9/10 LIVE AND LEARN BABY!