Rapid Fire (Film) Review - Sonic the Hedgehog

In Realm Beyond Sight's "Rapid Fire Review" I hit the good and the bad and try to get out before the review becomes too long winded. In this new review I take a look at director Jeff Fowler's Sonic the Hedgehog.

This review needs to start with a big THANK YOU to the VFX artists who went back in and completely redesigned the look of Sonic after the original design received horrendous feedback from fans. These artists deserve more credit than they will probably receive. They completely saved this film.

Centered around a hedgehog (voiced by Ben Schwartz) from an alien planet with unique abilities who is hiding out on Earth in Montana, this story sees Sonic teaming up with a small town cop named Tom Wachowski (James Marsden) to avoid capture from the sociopathic super genius Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey). The film does a good job from start to finish because it knows it's audience. Clearly aimed at children, this film does not try to please an older audience but has plenty of nostalgia and Easter eggs for gamers who spent hours playing the Sonic the Hedgehog video games when they were little. The humor is sure to get laughs and the Easter Eggs will make those in the know smile from ear to ear.

One big thing that would have brought this film from good to ... maybe not great but better, would have been if we stayed in Sonic home world. The audience only gets a few fast glimpses of the Emerald Hill Zone planet that Sonic is from before jumping to Green Hill, Montana. The small town and generic big city settings in the film work but are a little bland.

The performances delivered in this film are all solid. They may not be winning any academy awards but they were still good. The give and take between Ben Schwartz's Sonic and James Marsden' Tom Wachowski was fantastic and although Jim Carrey's Dr. Robotnik was a little over the top at times he did a great job. This performance was a cross of Ace Ventura and The Mask and it's clear that Carrey brought a little of the animated Robotnik's silliness into this role.

With credit scenes featuring another beloved Sonic character and a more Eggman inspired Robotnik it is clear that the studio wants to do a sequel. I actually hope they get to. It'll be fun to see where they go with this now that the introduction is done with.

In the end I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this film. The friends that I saw it with confessed that one of the best parts of the film was see my reactions to some of the cooler Easter eggs. I would recommend watching this film to all 90's gamers and adults with children. It's a fun watch and frankly this film deserves a chance given everything that the VFX team did to fix the film after listening to fans. 

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