[EXPRESSO] Sonic The Hedgehog 3 (2024) | Chaos Control(led)

Time for Shadow to enter the fray, in the third live action Sonic The Hedgehog film.

The plot sees Sonic and his friends Tails and Knuckles summoned to fight a new menace, Shadow, a nother powerful alien hedgehog that was sealed away for the last 50 years in a remote prison, until someone freed him, framing the defeated and basically retired Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik as the culprit, so the trio has to team up with the “Eggster” to find what is going on..

The first one was ok, the second i liked more and felt was a step up from the previous one, and once again this is an improvement, upping the stakes, introducing new characters , managing to pick up the right/good elements from the videogame series (Sonic Adventure 2 in this case) and use them well in this new narrative, committing to its 90s ‘tude even more by having Jim Carrey go full Dumb And Dumber as he plays two characters, both “Eggman” and his grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, doubling the slapstick ham and sillyness, for better or worse.

Honestly, i do enjoy Carrey doing some of his old schtick, even if it’s a bit too much at times.

Also, the effects and CG for Sonic and friends are top notch, arguably the best they’vee ever been, seamlessly blended, he action delivers some fun corny “DBZ but even more for kids” fights, and it does manage to be silly and referential but without being grating, even for adults.

While i find it to be a quite decent kids film, honestly it’s about as good as a Sonic live action filn could have been, in both spirit and form, and while the post ending credits scenes tease of more, it is the cap of a trilogy, providing some closure indeed.

[EXPRESSO] Sonic The Hedgehog (2020) | Amish Paradise

So after Sega decided to let the internet hivemind make artistic decisions for its Hollywood blockbuster movie based on its most iconic franchise, after that FX studio fixed the ghastly design Paramount was originally gonne use for Sonic (and got axed, as proof that karma is a phantom under capitalism), after the delays from late 2019 to now, the live-action Sonic The Hedgehog movie hit theathers.

The premise here sees Sonic as an alien who escaped to Earth from his home planet after being hunted for his powers, and hides for years in a little town in Montana called Green Hills, until he accidentaly causes a power outage, prompting the authorities to send the eccentric genius known as Dr. Robotnik, and Sonic has to run for its life, helped by Tom, the local cop who accidentaly discovers him, in a quest to recover the lost magical rings.

I was skeptic and waiting for this one to be a regression after the Detective Pikachu movie, and it’s Sonic, there are legitimate reasons why the series has this sketcky (at best) reputation nowadays outside of the 2D style releases. … and sadly i wasn’t too far off. Mind you, it actually fairly good as an adaptation, with pretty much all elements associated with Sonic displayed or worked into the plot, but it’s also a very formulaic kids movie at heart (no “liar reveal”, thankfully).

And while having Jim Carrey back to chewing the scenery with mighty gusto like he did before is nice, he isn’t given very funny lines, and it all feeds into the 90 nostalgia this movie leans heavily on without trying much on anything else.

It’s not bad, at all, but i’m not gonna say it’s decent just because we are trained to expect weird baffling shit from Sonic as a brand.

americano-icona

So, about that Sonic The Hedgehog movie trailer…

Don’t worry, i’m not gonna go into a tirade about the recently revealed trailer about the Sonic The Hedgehog live-action film.

But let me say, i’m honestly kinda intrigued, this looks like a more than fitting candidate for the “so bad it’s good” category, it looks like a mess, one made in the 90s alongside the Super Mario Bros live-action movie (back when they really didn’t had any precedent or clue of how to make a videogame-to-movie adaptation), almost intentionally so, “a cult movie in the making”, which seems like the case, it doesn’t look like it’s done on purpose to be a cult hit (it doesn’t work that way).

I don’t particulary care about Sonic as a franchise or a character, and i’m honestly ready to close this apparently unending “nostalgia for the 90s” trend and move on (good lord, we let Busby resurrect with not one, but TWO games, yeah, there’s another coming), but Jim Carrey as Eggman/Robotnik is a fun choice, and i’m eagerly awaiting it, this has all the elements of a potential disaster on all fronts, a supreme bad movie that becomes legendary, a gift, in a way.

Not that we needed/wanted it, at all, but since it’s coming out anyway…

Also, kudos to the director Jeff Fowler (at it’s first feature length film) for at least taking the criticism (well deserved, i mean, just look at it and try to tell me it’s a good design) on the chin and promising to fix Sonic’s design. Which is already been fixed in edits by random people on twitter (and i doubt it will be actually done, i don’t want crunch to happen because of this), but still, i respect the willingness to address this and not just ignore it.

Which would be quite understandable, given how people on social media react to anything.

**Also, a refresher, this was also a thing.**

I’ll be back with a couple of reviews soon enough!