Based on the Sega Genesis video game that I watched my brother play throughout most of the ’90s, Sonic the Hedgehog is a blue rodent who spins, flips and, most of all, runs very fast. I guess that was all you needed for a successful gaming franchise back then.
In this feature-film outing, Sonic (voiced by Ben Schwartz) is apparently an alien on a distant planet. When his owl caregiver is murdered by somewhat offensive savages, he comes to Earth and spends his years in a small town, wishing he had a family. When he gets angry, however, his supersonic speed causes a nationwide electrical blackout.
Thinking it’s a terrorist plot, the Army sends in Dr. Robotnik (a questionable Jim Carrey), sans his Mean Bean Machine. Using a wide variety of robots and drones, Sonic and small-town cop Tom (James Marsden) go on the lam, running into bikers and such on their way to San Francisco, where Sonic has to find a bag of magic rings.
Better late than never, Sonic barreled his way into theaters before the quarantine started, to impressive numbers, but it will mostly be remembered for being pushed back multiple times as digital artists desperately tried to erase the 1s and 0s that originally made up Sonic’s creepy teeth. Oh, the things we used to care about!
And while the redone Sonic is irritatingly adorable, Carrey’s shtick is somewhat dated; still, Robotnik is an interesting character, one I would like to see more of — preferably in the form of a solo flick I’d rent from Redbox — but, instead, it looks like we’re getting a sequel featuring Tails, a flying fox with the deformity of two tails. —Louis Fowler