Sonic the Hedgehog 3 – Movie Review

In an era of poorly filmed CG abuse, it’s rare to find a cinematographer who knows how to make the modern cinematic digital image understandable. So full credit goes to Brandon Trost, the man behind the lens of dramas like this Night slut And Can you ever forgive me?which avoids all possible pitfalls of rapid blur and motion capture sickness Sonic the Hedgehog 3. The latest installment in the film series based on the 33-year-old video game series should be a case study in film schools to provide clarity in an age of crowded screens. In this colorful world, Trost makes the images pop and vibrate, making this latest installment in the beloved series easy to watch in a way that most modern multiplexes seem to miss.

Unfortunately, this is one of the few areas where there is clarity Sonic the Hedgehog 3.

How far have these films fallen. The original from 2020, Sonic the Hedgehogwas a shockingly entertaining slice of kid-friendly high-speed antics, nicely written and featuring surprisingly sweet performances from James Marsden and Tika Sumpter as the small-town couple who take on the super-fast blue alien (voiced by Schwartz). The sequel, 2022 Sonic the Hedgehog 2built the universe by adding two of Sonic’s most popular alternate playable characters: Knuckles the Echidna (Elba plays the fierce mammal in imitation of Drax the Destroyer) and the two-tailed flying fox Tails (O’Shaughnessey). Now we seem to be caught in a two-year treadmill of Sonic movies playing on nostalgia for the franchise… and that’s apparently enough.

For those who care about continuity (and there are many): Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is more or less a film adaptation from 2001 Sonic Adventure 2. This was essentially Sega’s belated attempt to give the franchise an edgy ’90s vibe through a surprising amount of world domination, death, and the addition of an anti-hero version of Sonic called Shadow. Full of revenge and therefore appropriately voiced here by Keanu Reeves (because, you know, John Wick), he’s been in stasis for 50 years because he’s nervous. Rahr. Of course, he escapes and sets himself on a whirlwind collision course with the irritatingly chirpy Sonic, a collision that becomes an underdeveloped metaphor for nature versus nurture. If Sonic eventually lost everything he cared about, would he become a killing-hungry speed demon or would he remain the kind-hearted soul that took Tom in?

If this seems a bit heavy for a Sonic movie, that’s because it is. There are ways the script from the returning writing team of Pat Casey, Josh Miller, and John Whittington could have handled this important life lesson about anger in a more family-friendly way. Instead, the film oscillates between unremarkable banter and disturbingly high levels of danger. There is no coherence here, each scene standing in disjointed discomfort with the next.

What’s worse is that twice as much Jim Carrey somehow doesn’t equal twice as fun. His return to family-friendly, exaggerated characters is completely absurd in the first part sound was a real highlight as he grinned and looked behind the mustache of the villainous Dr. Robotnik made plans. It was probably his first moderate OTT appearance since then A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket in 2004, and it was a joy to see the comedic genius behind Ace Ventura and the Grinch flex his muscles once again. Here he plays both Robotnik and his own white-haired grandfather Gerald, and while their scenes together are fun, they never feel connected to the rest of the film. The climax could well be the duo dancing around Trost’s crystal clear lens. It’s just a shame that everything else he’s supposed to capture is such a soulless, directionless pile of innuendo and Easter eggs.