This series just continues to surprise me, its a rare thing to see a series where each sequel ACTUALLY improves and just gets a bit better. But here we are. after leaning a little bit more into referencing Sonic 2,3 and Sonic and Knucles in the last film, The studio finally decided to take the handbreak off and adapt probably one of the campiest and bizarre ‘lore’ shake ups in the series history.

I LOVE ‘Sonic Adventure 2’, as a game has it aged well? no. It has a lot of filler and the controls feel like trying to guide your characters through cement at all times. But do I love the vibe of it? you abso-bloody-lutely better believe it. So when I heard they were going to be using SA2 as the base for this movies adaptation I was frankly kind of delighted, in fact, it was when I heard they were going to use this as the base that my interest in this series actually began really.

So the plot is as follows, after the events of the last movie Eggman is presumed dead, and the army have formed a new taskforce with shutting down alien engagement in any way known as G.U.N (as subtle as a brick, and the film acknowledges that). At a secret prison complex occupied by G.U.N, a top secret experiment called ‘Project Shadow’ has been kept in stasis for 50 years, and the film opens with hackers interrupting the stasis cycle and freeing Shadow, a rogue black and red hedgehog with anger issues, from his entrapment.

Shadow promptly destroys the prison complex, takes out all the guards and flees to Tokyo, causing carnage and forcing G.U.N to recruit the ‘Sonic’ team to go deal with him. They get promptly whooped, and so Sonic and co have to fall back on ‘Stone’ Eggmans henchman for help…only, Stone reveals that Eggman survived the last movie and has been slobbing out trying to keep a low profile.

But when the team tell Eggman that the hackers involved in the incident used Eggmans signature moves to free Shadow, he becomes enraged and an unlikely alliance forms to find out who the hackers REALLY were, and to stop Shadow from enacting a 50 year old plan of vengence, with dire consiquences for humanity!

As mentioned, the biggest thing that drew me to this entry was exactly HOW they were going to handle the plot of SA2. The games plotting is pretty insane and border incoherent, with plot lines revolving around cloned demons, Impersonation, Flat out child murder, prototype gods, bio/cyborg engineering and large breasted bat ladies thieving shards of the master emerald. Its…an interesting turn on a series that up until this point was happy kind of just chilling in the woods freeing woodland critters for 75% of the playtime.

And, while I really wasnt surprised at all that there wasnt a 1:1 reimagining of the game to a film medium, I was a little dissapointed in some ways. the very corest of core plot elements are here (Shadow being freed, vaguely framing Sonic for a few crimes, and the final act is VERY vaguely similar to the game) but a LOT of the harder darker edges have been sanded RIGHT down, and a LOT of the campier elements of the games vibe and personality have also all but been sanded off. Shadow the hedgehog in the games is a campy, flouncy and ultimately lovable LGBT Icon, here? he’s a bit of a mopey teenager, and thats a shame. While Tails and Knuckles get a LOT more character development and more personality put on the screen, Sonic and Eggmans characters feel almost toned down as a result of them trying to keep continuity with the previous films vibes and aesthetics.

While big elements of the SA2 storyline are abscent, things like the Bio-lizard and the Chao’s are represented in fun little cameos, they also occasionally drop the odd line from the game into the movie which I thought was nice, along with 1 or 2 music cues from the game. Which again was a welcome addition to me, though Its a shame they didnt lean more into the games plotting honestly.

The script itself is probably the strongest one to date, we once again get some nice references to in game levels and cut scenes such as the Green forest, City escape,Pyramid Cave, and Final Rush, though I do think the series is starting to suffer a little bit in that the human plot lines and the furry plotlines seem to now be forming as an A-plot and B-plot, rather than melding together as they have done in the previous entries. Which is a shame as there were points in this where it felt like I was just watching a generic action comedy movie, and I had to remind myself that Sonic and the gang had been abscent from the screen for almost 10 minutes while the humans just…did humanny stuff.

The pacings pretty rock solid, all the acts move at a good pace and for an hour and 50 minutes long, it really didnt feel it. The tone and vibe is pretty solid once again, though I do wish they’d censored less. I want child murder to be graphic and directly caused by the army damnit!

Hell, even the many performances of Jim Carey in this film didnt grate in quite the same way they did in the last couple of movies, here there are some genuinely eggman-esq moments on display, and…the BIZARRE imagery conjured up when Carey is on screen makes some Japanese commercials look like the shipping forecast.

It ends about as strongly as it could have ended, and with ‘Sonic the hedgehog 4’ coming out in early 2027 (and mild spoilers, but its looking like its going to be taking elements from ‘Sonic CD’, which…I dont like that game much, but I LOVE the concept and Metal Sonic, so Im actually kind of delighted honestly) I feel that this film offers both a satisfying conclusion to its own story, and a good jumping off point if the 4th entry doesnt quite meet the hype.

Direction, Cine and editing are all once again on point. No real criticisms from me, the CG is looking quite a bit better than the last 2 entries, though how long that’ll hold up given the last 2 entries CG aging awfully in less than 5 years…only time will tell, The performances are great once again with Keanu Reeves adding a nice addition as Shadow, he’s got the right tone and vibe for the character, I just wish they’d given him a few more scenarios to really flounce a bit more. But hey, beggers cant be choosers.

The score is a nice mix of genuinely lovely orchestral pieces and remixes/rearrangements of sonic stage levels from the first game up to SA2, I do wish thered been a few more SA2 score remixes in there, my kingdom for an orchestral ‘Metal Harbour’ or ‘City Escape’ sequence. But otherwise, its about as solid as I could have hoped.

‘Sonic the Hedghog 3’ Once again firms up the franchise and offers a tighter, more well rounded viewing experience, with improvements across the board, the humour is now about as tight as I think they can get it and contrasting it with some darker tones in this entry made the funny bits all the more entertaining. It looks great, it has border immaculate vibes and I had a really fun time with this one, I hope they keep the momentum up for the next entry, and in the meantime, I have a ‘Knuckles’ spin off show to catch up on…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/sonic-the-hedgehog-3/