Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Review

Sonic the Hedgehog is one of the most iconic video game characters who has made a splash in other forms of media. His third theatrical film has been heavily marketed and looks like it will be one of the biggest films of the holiday period.

In 1974 a top-secret G.U.N. military facility suffered from a catastrophic incident and an alien creature ended up imprisoned for 50 years on an island near Tokyo. This creature, Shadow the Hedgehog (Keanu Reeves) finally escapes and causes mayhem and destruction in the Japanese capital, forcing G.U.N. to recruit Sonic (Ben Schwartz), Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey), and Knuckles (Idris Elba) to fight the ultimate lifeform. However, Team Sonic not only has to tackle a more powerful hedgehog, but they also need to fight shadowy forces within G.U.N.

Adaptations of video game properties have improved dramatically over the past few years. The Super Mario Bros. Movie was a massive hit and on TV The Last of Us and Fallout have been critical darlings. The Sonic the Hedgehog movies have gradually improved, with Sonic the Hedgehog 3 being one of the best-received video game films.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was notably darker and more serious than its previous films. The threequel drew its story from Sonic Adventure 2 with darker ideas. Shadow had a tragic backstory and the film emphasised that he was a dark mirror to Sonic. He was a more seriously minded character than the rest of the cast. There was a fair amount of death for a family film, and the villains’ threat was bigger. Sonic had matured a lot between Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and this film. He was no longer the joke-heavy, pop culture-referring character. Commander Walters (Tom Butler) was treated with a lot more weight and respect than he had in the first two films where he was talking about his love for Olive Garden.

The Sonic the Hedgehog franchise has generally been light-hearted and when some of the games try to go in a darker direction critics have criticised them. However, Sonic the Hedgehog can be darker, as shown in the ‘90s cartoon Sonic: SatAM. If I ever get to make a Sonic the Hedgehog animated series I would make it an action-adventure series like Avatar: The Last Airbender. The darker approach led to more character development for Sonic and there was less dependence on pop culture references.

The more straight-lace tone did take the Sonic the Hedgehog series into a techno-thriller. The use of secretive military/intelligence organisations and a cover-up would have been ideas used in the Michael Bay Transformers films. Fortunately, the creative team behind the Sonic the Hedgehog’s movies avoided Bay’s worst traits and instincts. The adaptation of Sonic Adventure 2 in the anime series Sonic X also incorporated techno-thriller elements, so Sonic the Hedgehog 3 wasn’t doing anything that radical. The third film stood in stark contrast to the Knuckles spin-off series which was a bizarre surreal comedy.

The previous films had a family theme and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 continued this. In the first film, Sonic lost his adoptive mother and was taken in by the Wackowskis, and the Wackowskis referred to Sonic as their child in the second film. By the third film, the Wackowskis were essentially a family with three kids. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 expanded on this showing Sonic going to a dark place when his family was threatened, Shadow was screwed up because of the loss of his loved ones, and Robotnik finally got to meet his long-lost family, upsetting the man who had been his loyal assistant.

Whilst Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was a bit more serious, it was still a kid’s film. It wasn’t Zack Snyder’s version of the franchise. The threequel doubled up on its amount of Jim Carrey. He reprised his role as Dr. Ivo Robotnik, while also playing the character’s grandfather Professor Gerald Robotnik. Both Robotniks riffed off each other and got up to up to slapstick antics. A dance sequence will delight children, and I enjoyed the song choice. Sonic and his friends still made jokes and since a good portion of the film was set in London, Sonic did get up to some stereotypically British things.

As an old Sonic fan, the third film gave me a lot of what I wanted. There was plenty of special effects action, child-friendly humour, and a bit more drama that gave the story a little more weight.