Sonic the Hedgehog is a 2020 action-adventure comedy film based on the video game franchise published by Sega. The film is directed by Jeff Fowler in his feature directorial debut and written by Pat Casey and Josh Miller. It stars Ben Schwartz as the voice of Sonic the Hedgehog and Jim Carrey as Doctor Robotnik, as well as James Marsden, Tika Sumpter, Natasha Rothwell, Adam Pally, and Neal McDonough. In the film, Sonic teams up with local town sheriff Tom Wachowski to find and reclaim his lost rings and escape Dr. Robotnik.
Cast:
Ben Schwartz as the voice of Sonic: An anthropomorphic blue hedgehog with superhuman speed who is on the run from Robotnik and the United States government. Schwartz also provided the facial motion capture for Sonic.
Benjamin L. Valic as young Sonic
Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik: A mad scientist and inventor who is after Sonic's super-speed powers for world conquest.
James Marsden as Thomas Michael "Tom" Wachowski: The sheriff of Green Hills who wishes to join the SFPD. He befriends Sonic and aids him in his quest to stop Robotnik.
Tika Sumpter as Maddie Wachowski: A veterinarian and Tom's wife who later helps him and Sonic evade Robotnik.
Lee Majdoub as Stone: A government agent who works for Robotnik.
Natasha Rothwell as Rachel: Maddie's sister who dislikes Tom and frequently encourages Maddie to leave him.
Adam Pally as Wade Whipple: A police officer in Green Hills and Tom's friend.
Neal McDonough as Major Bennington: A soldier who holds a dislike to Robotnik.
Tom Butler as Commander Walters: The Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who orders Robotnik to investigate the disturbances caused by Sonic.
Frank C. Turner as Crazy Carl: A conspiracy theorist who seeks to prove Sonic's existence and refers to him as "The Blue Devil".
Additionally, Colleen Villard, the voice of Tails in the video game series since 2014, reprises her role for the mid-credits scene, though is uncredited. Garry Chalk, who previously voiced Grounder and Robotnik in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Underground respectively, appears as the US Navy Chief of Staff. Donna Jay Fulks voices Longclaw, an anthropomorphic owl and Sonic's caretaker.
Plot:
(** SPOILERS **)
Sonic, an extraterrestrial blue hedgehog who can run at supersonic speeds, finds himself sought after by a tribe of echidnas for his power. His guardian, Longclaw the Owl, gives him a bag of rings that can create portals to other planets, using one to send him to Earth while she protects him from the echidnas. Ten years later, Sonic enjoys a secret life near the town of Green Hills, Montana, but longs to make friends. He idolizes the local sheriff, Tom Wachowski, and his veterinarian wife, Maddie, unaware the pair are planning to relocate to San Francisco soon, as Tom has been hired by the San Francisco Police Department.
One night, Sonic becomes upset over his loneliness when playing baseball by himself, and runs at supersonic speed as a result, inadvertantly triggering an electromagnetic pulse that knocks out power across the Pacific Northwest. Roboticist and scientific genius Doctor Robotnik is enlisted by the United States Department of Defense to uncover the source of the outage. Robotnik discovers and tracks Sonic, who hides in the Wachowskis' shed. Tom discovers Sonic and accidentally shoots him with a tranquilizer, causing him to send his bag of rings through a portal to San Francisco. Tom reluctantly agrees to help Sonic before Robotnik arrives at the Wachowskis' house and the two flee. As the pair evade Robotnik, who labels Tom a domestic terrorist, they slowly bond, with Tom learning about Sonic's desire for a real friend.
Robotnik comes across one of Sonic's quills, discovering the power in it has the potential to fuel his robots, and becomes obsessed with capturing Sonic. As he tracks them down, Tom discusses his plans to leave Green Hills, which Sonic disapproves of. Shortly after defeating a robot sent by Robotnik, an explosion injures Sonic. Arriving at San Francisco, Tom brings him to Maddie, who revives him. While Tom explains about their situation to Maddie, Sonic receives a new pair of sneakers from Maddie's niece. The group soon head to the roof of the Transamerica Pyramid, where Sonic's bag of rings landed, and recover them. Robotnik arrives in a hovercraft and attacks them, forcing Sonic to use a ring to send Tom and Maddie back to Green Hills.
Sonic flees from Robotnik, who uses the power of Sonic's quill to match his speed. The two engage in a chase across the world, ultimately returning to Green Hills. Robotnik incapacitates Sonic, but Tom intervenes, allowing Sonic to regain his strength and reclaim his lost energy. Overcoming Robotnik, Sonic defeats him by sending him to another planet. Following the incident, Tom and Maddie decide to stay in Green Hills and let Sonic live with them. The US government erases all evidence of the events, including records of Robotnik's existence. Meanwhile, Robotnik, still in possession of Sonic's quill and having lost his sanity, begins plotting his revenge. On Earth, Tails, a twin-tailed fox from Sonic's world, emerges from a ring portal in search of Sonic.
The Verdict:
I went to check this out Friday (Feb. 28, 2020) evening since I had some built-up Fandango movie credit to use that was going to expire on the 28th, so it was either this or sit through Birds of Prey again. This proved to be the lesser of the two evils and I have to admit that I was thoroughly entertained by this for the most part.
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| Much better. It's like before and after eating a Snickers. |
Everyone knows how much backlash Paramount received for Sonic's initial appearance from the first round of trailers for this film and I'm pleased to say that I was satisfied with how Sonic looked in the final product. He didn't come off looking like a walking, talking turd like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the Michael Bay-made live-action film for Nickelodeon a few years ago. Sonic garnered a lot of genuine laughs from me watching this, especially when the film kicked into a few Quicksilver-esque slow-motion sequences that they should be thanking Fox's departed X-Men franchise for making a thing a few years ago. Those jokes work as that trick is still fresh in a lot of people's minds and the film doesn't shy away from the comparisons to that character, along with DC Comics' Flash. Hell, Sonic is shown reading and owning a tons of The Flash's comics in his hideout. Wouldn't that make for one hell of a crossover film down the road if both parties wanted to play nice and indulge in some healthy fan-service.
As for the human characters, I wasn't "offended" nor annoyed by them as I thought I would be going in. James Marsden's Tom Wachowski made me keep thinking of a mash-up between Transfomers' Sam Witwicky and Cade Jaeger at first glance, but he won me over by the time the credits rolled. Same goes for his wife (played by Tika Sumpter). Jim Carrey's Dr. Robotnik definitely stole the show with his cheesiness and over the top behavior for the titular villain. I think he was inspired by the character's portrayal back in the various Sonic cartoons in the '90s and it really shows. I thought it was clever to have Sonic consistently hammer the "Eggman" moniker throughout the film too. That way they don't have to battle with that confusion like how gamers dealt with over the years on whether or not to call him Dr. Robotnik (US name for him) or Eggman (Japanese name that was later adopted in the Sonic series). I think everyone has just settled onto calling him Eggman now after the Sonic X anime and popular IDW Publishing comics, even though I don't mind either name.
If I had any issue with this film's plot, it's that where in the blue hell did they cook up Longclaw from as Sonic's "caretaker" when he was a kid. Why couldn't they just use his Uncle Chuck from the old continuity stuff? I have to wonder what are they going to do to trump Sonic's "powered up" transformation at the end of this film during it's climax. That was leaning very close to literally being Super Sonic without the Chaos Emeralds for my taste. They shouldn't have gone that far with it if they are going to introduce more Sonic characters down the road, notably Knuckles (as it was obviously his echidna race who attacked him as a child and Longclaw), who will make obtaining the Chaos Emeralds a primary concern going forward in later films. It kinda takes the air out of the room in terms of excitement for what's to come next. I can't say that I'm too thrilled about Tails being teased for the possible sequel in the mid-credits teaser either, especially when it seems that Sonic is content being the super-powered Ted for the Wachowski family.
Watch It or Don't Bother?
I wasn't offended by this nor did I think it was a horrible film. It's just something in the same vein as the live-action Transformers films where you can genuinely enjoy if you sit back and enjoy the nostalgia and don't try to dig too deep into the logic behind all of this. In that regard, I can safely say that go ahead and give this a shot. It might not be for everyone, especially given the human element shoehorned in much like Michael Bay's Transformers film franchise, but I didn't think the human interactions took away from the entertainment of it all.
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