Sonic the Hedgehog Blu-ray Review

Sonic the Hedgehog is a pop culture icon who has delighted generations of gamers. He made his move to live-action films with the 2020 release of his debut film.

Sonic the Hedgehog (Ben Schwartz) has lived on Earth for 10 years after his guardian was attacked by a tribe of echidnas. On Earth he lives in hiding near the small town of Green Hills and idealises the local sheriff, Tom Wachowski (James Marsden), unaware he plans to move to San Francisco. When Sonic accidentally causes an EMP that knocks out power across the Pacific Northwest the US government sends the brilliant but arrogant Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) to investigate. Sonic and Tom have to go on the road to San Francesco and find his rings that could teleport Sonic to safety.

Sonic the Hedgehog was exactly what you expect a film about Sonic the Hedgehog would be: a safe, middle of the road family film that will be fine for kids but grating for adults. It’s a film that tries to bait adults with pop culture references (there were a lot of references to Speed and the Fast and Furious films), and nostalgia for the property. But it was really a marketing exercise for Sega.

There have been plenty of films and TV shows being made, large advertisements. Famous examples are the Transformers and Power Rangers and even Sonic the Hedgehog has been adapted into numerous cartoons, some tying in with specific games. To be fair to the Sonic the Hedgehog movie the filmmakers did try and give the film some heart. Sonic has had to live on Earth alone for 10 years and remain hidden all that time. Because of this, Sonic wasn’t all there mentally. He wanted to make friends, have a family, and have some social interaction. It was a solid foundation for character growth and investment.

Tom was also given an arc where he was annoyed by the hedgehog but learns to accept the Blue Blur. He also has the arc about wanting to leave Green Hills for more excitement in the big city but was that what he really needed? That second arc would have been more poignant if Tom was shown to have more connection to townspeople instead of showing it as Boredville, USA. One of the deleted scenes did show Tom having more of a connection to his hometown.

The screenplay was cookie cutter. The writers knew the basic principles of screenwriting and use it to make a standard human and alien working together story with a road trip. The quality can range from E.T. to Howard the Duck. Sonic the Hedgehog even has references to both those films with Sonic trying to hide in plain sight and the main characters getting involved in a bar fight.  It’s ironic that the production company was called ‘Original Film.’

The producers were clearly thinking ahead to a franchise. The Sega logo was made up of footage of classic games, a bit like the start to a Marvel or DC film. The echidnas were clearly setting up Knuckles’ appearance in the sequel and mid-credit scene featured a fan favourite character.

Fans of franchises will like some of the nods to the games. Green Hills was clearly a reference to Green Hill Zone in the first Sonic game, a mushroom world looked like Mushroom Hill Zone from Sonic & Knuckles, and one of the characters sings the Sonic X theme. The use of some locations in the film were influenced by the games – the city in Sonic Adventure 2 was based on San Francisco, the Pyramids were also used in Sonic Adventure 2 and influenced Sandopolis Zone in Sonic & Knuckles, and a part of the climax took part on the Great Wall of China, a location in Sonic Unleashed. I did enjoy the animation at the end which was done in 16-bit graphics.

One of the most infamous aspects of the production was the original design for Sonic. The original design went for a ‘realistic’ look and it was heinous. Fans were outraged, film fans mocked it, and I even joked on my personal Facebook page ‘childhood ruined.’ It was the stuff of nightmares. Paramount and the filmmakers wisely redesigned the character to be more like the original and it was all the better for it, even if the animators were worked to the bone.

The Sonic the Hedgehog movie wasn’t the worst thing to come out of the Sonic franchise but that’s due to the sheer volume of products the franchise has produced. Sonic had done action-adventure (Sonic SatAM) and comedy (Sonic Boom) a lot better.

Special Features: The Blu-ray came with 35 minutes’ worth of extra. Most of them were short featurette that wasn’t particularly impressive. The most interesting were the deleted scenes with one of them showing an alternative opening for the film.