#6: Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)

"Do ya'll criticize white people's movies as much as ya'll
criticize Tyler Perry's?"

- Individual who forgot about how the world over clowned the original appearance of movie! Sonic The Hedgehog. 

Just like "New Mutants", "Artemis Fowl", and "Chaos Walking", "Sonic the Hedgehog" was pushed from 2019 to 2020 (or, 2021, in the case of CW).

Why? Because his initial design looked ratlike and terrifying. Non-Sonic aficionados had no problem with it, and chastised the filmmakers for revisiting the drawing board.

Newsflash, guys - This movie was going to live or die by the reception by its fans. They didn't like it. It was terrifying. VFX artists told Paramount that it looked like shit, and they didn't listen until we ALL told them it looked like shit.

So, do you sink more money into it - Around 5$m, allegedly - and push it back, or do you push forward, and release something that was prepared to be a laughingstock?

Ask Universal and "Cats".

Anyway, did a redesigned Sonic save this movie?




First, if you're expecting the smart-talking character from such recent cartoons as "Sonic Boom" (which is genuinely funny)...you get a lonely, neurotic character instead. I don't say that lightly, as this Sonic talks to himself (and has, for about a decade), isolated from others, and the events of the film kick off because he has a nervous breakdown.

It's ... as a long time, but not deep Sonic fan (I am vaguely aware of "SonicSatAM", the titular cartoon, and "Underground",  the OVA is a classic piece of animation. I'm more familiar with the mainline games), this...this is not what I like about Sonic. That's way too serious for a Sonic the Hedgehog film. It's sad, and hits close.

But it does get better and more fun, in a 'boring road trip in the mid 2000's' kind of way. Sonic never stops talking, and sadly he doesn't have a lot of interesting things to say. Ben Schwartz (You know him from "Parks and Rec", I know him from the quite entertaining Disney XD show "Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja") fits the role wonderfully.

There are nods to things (Chili dogs, the rings, surprisingly none about the Chaos Emeralds, there's a spot where I thought they were making a call back to the ill-fated Sonic 06, but who wants to call back to that? No one.)

Out of all the iconic game characters to hit this film...Sonic is second in his own movie to Jim Carey's Dr. "No, not Eggman here", Robotnik. He is funny, lively, and doesn't overstay his welcome, a refreshing relief whenever the movie cuts away from Sonic to Robotnik's frantic pursuit of him. There's a particular scene in the 3rd act that I enjoyed more than Sonic's journey entirely.

The humans? James Marsden and Tika Sumpter are married in this film, which I did not know about, interesting how the marketing kept that quiet, but it didn't matter, and it was nice to see that, essentially, only 2 of the main human cast were white.

T-Mobile Tuesdays and Atom had a deal to get these tickets for 4$, and if I had paid more, I probably would have been miffed. As it stands, I just wish I had seen "Birds of Prey" again.

It's looking like "Sonic" is possibly sequelized, as it's on track to make $55m this weekend, and the stinger near the end will not go to waste.