Review: Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Sonic the Hedgehog 2, directed by Jeff Fowler, tells the tale of Sonic (Ben Schwartz), a speedy space hedgehog who, after defeating the EVIL Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) and banishing him to the mushroom realm, settles into his new home on planet Earth with his foster dad Tom (James Marsden) and foster mom Maddie (Tika Sumpter). But the peace doesn’t last too long as Robotnik finds de wey back home to Earth with the help of a fierce space echidna named Knuckles (Idris Elba), who is hellbent on finding the legendary Master Emerald and avenging his lost tribe. With the help of a spunky flying space fox named Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey), Sonic must now race the globe against the bad guys in order to prevent the Master Emerald from falling into the wrong hands.
Who would’ve thought a major studio would end up with a golden goose of a franchise after actually listening to audience feedback. When the first Sonic the Hedgehog film released its first trailer, people were understandably terrified at what they saw, so much so people actively campaigned to get Sonic looking more like his classic design. To everyone’s surprise, Paramount actually listened, and that first film made about as much money as it could’ve before COVID shut down the whole world.
I may not have liked the first movie at all, but I’ll have to be grateful at its success, because now we finally get a Sonic movie that actually feels like a Sonic movie with this sequel.
This movie is unashamed at what it’s trying to be, and I can truly respect that. This movie had so much fun and colorful sequences that were super entertaining to sit through. Sure a lot of the jokes and pop cultural references were super cringe-inducing much like in the first film, but this film makes up for it by showing off the crazy amount of care and appreciation of the source material that I haven’t seen from a video game movie of all things.
Ben Schwartz encapsulates the character of Sonic very nicely, Jim Carrey was a true blast to watch, Colleen O’Shaughnessey, who also voices Tails in the Sonic games, was a nice addition to the film, and Idris Elba as Knuckles was a little distracting due to the fact that Idris Elba’s voice is too distinct and jarring to hear coming out of this space echidna (every time I hear Knuckles speak in this film I only hear Idris Elba and not the character on screen) but at the very least he gets a few funny moments.
One thing that bothers me about this film compared to the first film is the overall pacing of the story and the hefty two hour runtime. There’s quite a bit of movie in this movie for kids and unfortunately not all of it is relevant to the plot. There were several scenes that grind the film’s pacing to a halt, and they all feature James Marsden’s character in Hawaii incidentally. Everything with Sonic was fun but once they switch to this wedding subplot I suddenly get reminded that this what Hollywood thinks people who play the games want to see.
What makes this worse is the fact that there isn’t a lot of character development to be found throughout this film. Sonic starts off in one place at the beginning of the film and pretty much stays there by the end. Tails gets the worst treatment here as he’s relegated to be the film’s exposition machine; there’s no real character traits on Tails outside of the fact that he has cool gadgets, he’s only there to explain what’s going on with the story. If the film spent more time making these characters colorful in ways that isn’t their literal designs instead of focusing on cringe modern day references and pointless unfunny subplots I would’ve enjoyed this movie a lot more.
But overall for what it is I still enjoyed it, which is more than I could say for most other video game movies, the first Sonic movie included. Kids and Sonic fans will get a kick out of this film for sure, and if this sounds like something you’ll enjoy by all means go check it out. I might not think much about this film afterwards but hey, at least we’re getting to the point where video game movies are starting to become actually watchable.
Final Verdict: 6/10