5 years ago, the team over at Paramount made one of the biggest mistakes in cinematic history by releasing a trailer for the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog movie featuring one of the worst character designs in history.

Instead of looking like the iconic video game mascot that every kid who grew up in the 1990s no one loved,  the animation staff decided to turn Sonic the Hedgehog into the monkey boy from the first Jumanji movie. To Paramount’s credit however,  instead of attacking the fan base and saying that they were the problem in this scenario,  Paramount opted to delay the release of the film so that they could fix the character design to appease its fan base.

The character design got a very positive reaction from audiences who then proceeded to flock to the movie Making over 320 million on a 90 million dollar production budget.  The first film puts out a great effort to please kids, fanatics, adults, and moviegoers everywhere making it a true crowd-pleaser.

After building a lot of Goodwill with his fan base Paramount had enough momentum to move forward with a sequel entitled Sonic the Hedgehog 2 emblematic of the popular video game under the same title. Sonic 2 was a film with a strong message about family and friends; however, there was a noticeable drop in quality whenever the film switched focus to the human characters.

The entire subplot involving the wedding of Maddie’s older sister Rachel does nothing for the movie besides bringing the story to a halt. “Sonic The Hedgehog 2” wasn’t groundbreaking but it was a serviceable sequel with plenty of entertainment for the family to enjoy.

This leads us to the third movie Sonic the Hedgehog 3.  Despite sharing the same title as the game,  the movie does not play off of the plot of the video game but skips much further ahead to bring audiences the introduction of the most successful post-Genesis character in the Sonic franchise Shadow the Hedgehog.

The film begins with the introduction of Shadow the Hedgehog,  the ultimate life form who has been trapped in a secret facility for over 50 years following the devastating events that led to the loss of his friend, a young girl named Maria. 

Consumed with vengeance,  Shadow wants the world to suffer for everything they have taken away from him. Meanwhile, Sonic is riding the highest point of his life with family and friends surrounding him. 

However, when Sonic meets Shadow he sees a hedgehog that unlike him does not have the luxury of having a well-balanced family around him. To make matters worse the family that he did have just so happens to be Doctor Gerald Robotnik, the long-lost grandfather of Dr. Ivo Robotnik.

Gerald, who also wants revenge for the death of his granddaughter, Seeks the destruction of the entire planet and plans on using Shadow’s blind rage as a tool to destroy it and it is up to Team Sonic to stop him before it’s too late. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is a massive improvement to the previous installment.

Paramount listened to the audience’s negatives of the last film and decided less was more.  The biggest thing that hindered the previous Sonic film was the human characters that took away from the overall plot and dragged things out to a 2-hour runtime that did not need it.

In Sonic the Hedgehog 3 the human characters’ roles in the film are downgraded significantly and focus on the character development of both Shadow and Sonic the Hedgehog.  This means that people who are fans are Sonic or going to get a lot more of him in this movie than they did in the previous one.

Keanu Reeves as Shadow the Hedgehog is added to the ever-growing list of characters including Ben Schwartz as the voice of Sonic, Idris Elba as the voice of Knuckles, and Colleen O’Shaughnessy as Tails. The meat of the film focuses on Shadow’s backstory Maintaining faithfulness to the source material of his character. 

Like all the Sonic movies before there are tons of references to other franchises as the film looks to play up to its bread and butter which is mainstream families.  The film continues its narrative of teachable life lessons and enforcing positive behavior which families looking for a time out with their kids will appreciate. 

Jim Carrey is back in the franchise this time playing two characters instead of one.  Despite pulling double duty,  Carrey is very much toned down from his last performance which was bordering on annoying.

In all, the film takes the heart of the cons that people have with the first movie and it proves to them that it raises Sonic 3 over its predecessor. Some fans would argue this is the best of the three Sonic movies thus far.

One thing that cannot be denied is that Sonic the Hedgehog has been the exception to the rule that video game movies simply cannot be done satisfactorily on the big screen.

3.5/5 

Don’t forget to Subscribe for Updates. Also, Follow Us at Society-Reviews, YouTube,  Twitter, Odysee, Rumble, and Twitch