Im a long time fan of the “Blue Blur” having cut my gaming teeth through most of the 90s, the ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ games pretty quickly became a firm favourite in my games library, I learnt the basics of platforming with the original games, the ‘Sonic Adventure’ series were two of my earliest games for the ‘Gamecube’, and even when the series has been utter UTTER dross as seen in ‘Sonic ’06’ and the ‘Wii’ exclusives, theres always been something kind of lovable about this franchise and series…That and the ‘lore’ of the franchise is frankly bewildering to the point of madness.

So when they announced they were making a movie adaptation of the series, I had mixed feelings, on the one hand, its a movie adaptation of one of my favourite video game characters, on the other hand, its a movie adaptation of one of my favourite video game characters aimed at younger children and cringey Millenials looking to desperately cling to their childhood by any means necessary. And then they hired Jim Carey to play Dr. Robotnik…and THEN ‘Covid’ properly kicked off….and THEN ‘Ugly Sonic’ and THEN the trailer which was filled with slightly cringey ‘present to 2020’ meme references…aaaaaand I basically wished it well and went back to lysol’ing my entire house every day for 2 years…

WELL! Theres 3 of these movies now, they’ve apparently been quite successful, and its ‘Voidmass’, that strange period between Christmas and New Years…I have a few months of a Paramount+ subscription left to go…So I gave it a go…I had fun with it.

The plot creates a somewhat new origin story for Sonic, here; he’s an orphan being looked after by a talking owl in the world of ‘Green Hill’, he’s an oddity with superhuman speed and lightning powers that have never been witnessed in this world before, and, from the off as part of a ‘just go with it’ insertion piece. the land has ‘Rings’ that can tear a hole in the fabric of space time to any world or reality that the thrower thinks of.

Life isnt perfect in Green Hill however, Sonic is told to hide who he is, which he refuses, leading to him being hunted by a tribe of Echidnas (Im sure THAT will become relevent in the sequel!) When his adopted owl mum takes an arrow to the knee, she casts a ring to a mysterious reality called ‘Earth’ and sends Sonic there with a bag of rings, warning him to stay hidden; and if he’s ever discovered to flee to the last safe reality, a mushroom planet with no other habitable life.

With that, Sonic is cast into ‘Green Hills’ Montana. Where he sets up a pretty cushy pad in the forest, and spends his days pimping out his crib and exploring the life and lifestyles of ‘Green Hills’ inhabitence.

Its here that we’re also introduced to Tom, Tom is part of the local law enforcement and is trying to find a ‘real’ cop job working the hardened streets of San Francisco as he’s grown bored of the stale local policing life that includes jumpstarting peoples cars, eating doughnuts and looking after stray ducks. Luckily for Tom, he gets the job! and him and his partner begin plans to move to San Francisco. Unluckily for Sonic, he’s grown deeply attached to Tom and his mundane life, and really REALLY wants things to stay exactly as they are.

On realising that he may never actually get to do half the things he wants to if he stays hidden, Sonic accidentally releases a large energy wave, which knocks out half the towns power and alerts the government. At first they think its an EMP attack, but then they realise it may be something more. So they bring in a psychotic genius, Dr. Ivan Robotnik, who immediately seizes control of the militaries budget and hardware and begins a desperate attempt to track down what or who caused the energy surge, for nefarious alterior motives.

Meanwhile Tom and Sonic accidentally end up meeting each other, and when Robotnik pieces this together, the pair must take off across country, avoiding Robotnik and the law, in the hopes of reaching San Francisco and getting Sonic to a safe new home. All the while making up for lost time via a ‘Bucket List’.

Having seen this one now, I feel I did somewhat judge a book by its cover. Up front, is it perfect? absolutely not. it is a flawed production, but did I enjoy it? I absolutely did.

The script isnt really offering anything new exactly, its basically a buddy roadtrip movie at its core, but its a pleasent enough one. Its ultimately more of a character piece, with the films success predominantly being levvied on how much you like Sonic, Tom and Robotnik as characters.

The pacing is pretty solid, keeping pretty consistent across all three acts, with maybe just a slight sag in the second act. The tone and humour is very much all over the place, but at its best it has some really nice dry humour, some good self aware stuff that wouldnt feel out of place on ‘Adult Swim’ and a few nice jokes for long time sonic fans across all the media formats he’s appeared in. At its worst, theres excessive ‘Flossing’ (I felt myself petrifying when that came on as I realised that was less than 5 years ago) and fart gags…Stay classy Sega…

I feel the film ends about as well as it could, nicely setting up a sequel, but maybe just a tad schmaltzier than I would have liked. for me though, the biggest wedge I had with this film lies in its characterisations.

The non series characters from this film, could just as easily be NPC’s for the amount of weight and depth they bring to the screen, the vast majority of them at this point did pretty much nothing for me, and legitimately gave me ‘appearing in an advert’ vibes. Tom is probably the closest to breaking that mold, but its a struggle and i’d say he suffers from the ‘commercial’ vibes for a good 70% of the runtime.

Obviously, Sonic is the main focus of this movie, and I think they nailed his tone and vibe more or less, I think in the games at least, Sonic is maybe a little more snarky and a bit more dry humour wise, but this feels like a good amalgam of his personalities across the games, Anime series and the Saturday morning TV Sonic. They’re all Sonic, and this Sonic is ALL Sonics.

Robotnik on the other hand? I struggled with, with the exception of the Satruday morning ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ TV series, Robotnik has almost always been portrayed as a genius scientist with a malevolent presence and a bizarre appearence. The whole reason the character looks the way he does is BECAUSE its supposed to lull people into a false sense of security around him, to make Robotnik look as if he couldnt really BE that bad…only he is.

Carey here?…is doing Jim Carey. He resembles the character of Robotnik in neither tone nor visuals. He’s doing the same ‘Ace Ventura’, ‘Bruce Almighty’, ‘Grinch’ routine he’s been doing for years, just less animated, and with less funny voices. He has a degree of malevolence, but not much else going for it. I actually find it kind of bizarre that Carey retired citing feeling tired with doing the same old routines…just to come back specifically to do this role….AND to do it multiple times…

In either case, I DO think hes a highlight of this film, but I just dont really think he’s playing ‘Robotnik’. And thats kind of a shame really, because I’d have loved to have seen an actual attempt and bringing that staunch genius menace and seriousness to the big screen, rather than just Carey going through the motions…

On every other front, the films fine. The direction and cine is pretty solid, though the visual effects are already showing some signs of creaking…which is concerning given the films only just about 5 years old. The cine is vibrant rich and detailed which is nice, the Bullet time sequences here are welcome and fun little additions, the edits pretty rock solid and the performances are all to Studio grade, there wernt any that I particularly loved, but I didnt actively hate any of them either.

I think post release, this film could stand to go back into the edit to clip out the 2019/2020 meme references, they aged like sour milk here and had me actually having to look up what the ‘fad’ of the day was at the time that warrented its inclusion here, but obscure jokes ‘from the day’ has been a problem with cinema going back to its fundamentals. as im sure there’ll be ‘6-7’ references in movies throughout 2026.

Ultimately; had this film been a standalone, i’d have maybe been a bit dismissive of it, pleasent enough, but not worth seeking out, but given its now part of a franchise with 3 (soon to be 4) entries plus a couple of TV series in the works. I have to see it as the base for a bigger picture. I didnt dislike it, but if this was all there is, I wouldnt have been won over by it. As it stands, its a fine enough story, reintroducing characters from a 30+ year franchise to a younger audience and setting the pieces up for many more adventures to come.

I had a fun enough time with it, I will be checking the sequels out, and I think if your a fan of the games, or of Sonic in general, you’ll probably get a kick out of this one, its not quite as coherent and curated as ‘The Super Mario Bros Movie’. But what it lacks in presentation, it more than makes up in presenting these characters and using a style of humour that Nintendo wouldnt touch with a barge pole. Proving once again that Sega do, what Nintendont!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/sonic-the-hedgehog/