Consistently OK. Do you know how many trilogies have wide variations in quality. Or are consistently excellent like the LOTR and Before Trilogies. It takes a brave trilogy to simply go for the middle, and hit the middle each time. So congratulations to the Sonic the Hedgehog team, you’re perfectly fine. You did it! We look forward to seeing you onstage at the Vanilla Awards, along with Shawn Mendes and NCIS.
Things are pretty chill at Tom (James Marsden) and Maddie Wachowski’s (Tika Sumpter) house in the forest. Sonic (Ben Schwartz) is celebration a Happy b EARTH day for his first day on earth with his best friends Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey) and Knuckles (Idris Elba), content at defeating Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) and living their happy life as a family. But the G.U.N. military organization sends Director Rockwell (Kristen Ritter) to ask for Team Sonic’s help with a new/old threat. Shadow (Keanu Reeves) escaped G.U.N. prison, and is determined to unleash vengeance on the organization and Earth for what happened to him.
By the 3rd Sonic director Jeff Fowler has found a groove with his voice and live action cast. Team Sonic finally hits its stride with Idris Elba’s Knuckles present, a nice bellowing Shakespearean voice that gets the funniest line deliveries amongst the three, like calling Tom the Lord of the Donuts. Colleen O’Shaughnessey makes Tails the secret heart of the movie, sure in his spot on the team and home base when things get bad. And Ben Schwarz bounces happily between them, finding the right amount of plucky kid naivete and turning it off when he has to be serious. But the big winner here is Keanu Reeves’s Shadow. No one told him this was a kids movie, as he plays the hedgehog as tragically serious as his backstory suggests. Every line reading is filled with pain and anger, walking a tough but clear line for kids that Shadow’s the bad guy, but he’s not really evil, impressive work I didn’t expect in a simple family tale.
As for the live action stuff, Fowler decided it was time for a Jim Carrey double dip. The “money poor” actor apparently needed more expensive stuff, so he agreed to play Robotnik and his own grandpa. What we get is the Jim Carrey family movie funny man showcase, using all those physical gifts to pull off a delightful dance number, gross fun stuffing his face watching an over the top amusing telenovela to pass the time, or making crazy emotionally overcommitted reactions to everything Robotnik or his pop pop are supposed to feel as the plot goes along. Like the voice actors, he’s got his groove here too, never undercutting how we’re supposed to feel, but always finding a light, funny way to pull that off for the whole family to enjoy. For the supporting cast, James Marsden and Tika Sumpter are perfectly good parents here, doing what they can with limited screen time. I particularly love Lee Majdoub’s weird energy secretly pent up but in love with the Dr. And in bit parts we get great comedic performers like Adam Pally, Cristo Fernandez, Natasha Rothwell, and Kristen Ritter.
I had a perfectly chill time watching Sonic 3. Plus, the big city hopping from Tokyo to London gives me a fun chance to spot little game cameos. I in particular hope they make the Chao Garden Tokyo restaurant a real life pop up, because its the right mixture of weird, silly, and fun that I would have a blast having a meal in. Who knows? Maybe we’ll get a crossover with Five Nights at Freddy’s as the Sonic cast grows up? Or is that just my demented thinking? Yep, just me. Sorry y’all.