Sonic 3 is out now, and if you know me, you know I will be excited for another movie adaptation of the beloved blue hedgehog created by Sega. My interest was already piqued after the previous movie and its post-credit scene teasing Shadow, hinting that the lore of the Sonic universe would be explored further, and was heightened even more so after the news that Keanu “John Wick” Reeves would be voicing Shadow, joining the strong cast of Ben Schwartz as Sonic, Colleen O’Shaughnessey as Tails and Idris Elba as Knuckles.
When I got invited into the media premiere of the movie, I jumped at the opportunity, and happily hopped into the movie theatre. Even with my overexcitement, I will be giving an honest review of this movie as most threequels tend to fail, with only a few movies like The Return of the King, How to Train Your Dragon 3 and Thor: Ragnarök making the cut into the realm of great threequels.
If you haven’t seen the movie, don’t worry as this review won’t contain spoilers other than some references to the games.
So, What Do I Think of the Movie?
The movie is a reinterpretation of the video game Sonic Adventures 2 with the introduction of Shadow as the titular villain, alongside Doctor Eggman Robotnik and his grandfather, Professor Gerald Robotnik. The movie removes most of the subplots from the game, and even removes one of the characters, Rouge the Bat, to try to tell the backstory of Shadow in a more condensed form while also providing a better good-versus-evil plotline.
There is one initial problem when the movie starts though, which is that the movie expects the audience to have watched the first two Sonic movies (which if you didn’t, shame on you, you should go watch them). The start of the movie is a high-octane action scene introducing Shadow, before going back to Sonic, his gang and human friends. This almost 20-minute introduction would have had most audiences grasping to figure out what was going on and left me at the edge of my seat even from the get-go.
The movie then goes into further exposition, with introductions and re-introductions of characters, which drags a little but does keep up with great action scenes and game references. Although I appreciate the storytelling of the Sonic lore, the movie’s 2 hour runtime began to feel too long, especially with the multiple flashbacks featuring Shadow. I think showing his backstory once would have been enough to explain his motivations and sorrow.
Still, while there are problems with the pacing, I believe it is due to the many plots and backstories the movie intends to tell while keeping an articulate overall story.The comedy in the movie also helps alleviate the slog, thanks to Jim Carrey. Just like in the previous movies, you will never tire of his antics and slapstick.
Now, while I know that the movie is CGI almost 80% of the time, it is still amazing what they can do with CGI these days, as the Sonic Team characters and Shadow blend in well with the environment and their human counterparts. The action sequences are choreographed very well, doing away with the epileptic shaky cameras most action movies these days prefer, and showing the talents of each character while not sidelining the rest of the cast too much. Though I would have preferred to watch more of Tails and Knuckles, they did have their time to shine in the second movie and in the Knuckles series, thus, it is forgivable.
Conclusion
Overall, it is a great time to be a Sonic fan with all three movies hitting homeruns not only in telling a coherent Sonic story but also having lots of references to the game, my favourite being Live and Learn. I give the movie a solid 8 out of 10 pies and something tells me that there will be more pies to give out to this movie franchise. (P.S.: stay for the two after-credits!)
