Sonic the Hedgehog
It’s hard to believe that the Sonic the Hedgehog fiasco has gone on for over a year now. From the sign of bad things to come (that damning silhouette teaser of humanoid Sonic) to the maligned trailer that resulted in a complete redesign of the actual Sonic, we have finally arrived at the film. So, what do we have? A buddy-buddy picture that just happens to star the Sega icon: the blue speed demon winds up being side-by-side with a sheriff for the entire film, as they travel to San Francisco to find Sonic’s rings, while being on the run from Dr. Robotnik. Okay? You could have had the exact same result if you replaced Sonic with Mario (having fled from the Mushroom Kingdom) or Crash Bandicoot (lost on the way to Cortex’s castle). Instead, we get Sonic: the fastest thing alive, trapped in hiding on Earth after his guardian Longclaw is killed while protecting him (I’m no Sonic expert, but this owl doesn’t exist in the games, right?).
I’m going to contradict myself. I am not an expert, but I played enough Sonic (particularly 3 & Knuckles) as a child to know that the team behind Sonic the Hedgehog mean well, but they may not really know the Sonic lore all too well. So, Sonic is trapped in Green Hills (get it? Because the first level is the Green Hill Zone? Hah, hah), and is tempted to evacuate to this mushroom planet if things get dicey on Earth. He hates the idea of this. You mean, he hates the Mushroom Hill Zone? Basically the Green Hill Zone of Sonic & Knuckles? The place the chaos emeralds are held? They couldn’t have picked a more distressing place, rather than the other safest location in Sonic history? This also doesn’t help the existing plot holes found throughout. So, Sonic is fast enough to spy on various Green Hills citizens on a regular basis. How wouldn’t he have known about Tom Wachowski wanting to move? How does Dr. Robotnik happen to have machinery that can extract information from one of Sonic’s quills if he just discovered this species existed that same day? Why does Sonic fluff up when drying himself when he is made out of quills and not fur? Quills are hard!
Sonic is more a buddy film than anything else.
Look. This could have been way worse if Sonic looked like the abomination he was meant to be. However, exclude the plot holes, the weird distancing from the actual video games (are rings meant to actually teleport creatures, or is that only because you would hop through rings at the end of levels?), and the occasional fart jokes, and Sonic the Hedgehog is actually okay. The creators — despite the flaws — seem to have made this film for fans of the Sonic milieu rather than the hardcore fans of the games. There’s even an easter egg reference to a poorly drawn “Sanic” meme near the start of the film. There are a number of not so family friendly jokes, that made me feel like I was watching one of those ‘90s comedy films that just don’t exist anymore (you either go full raunch, or fully safe).
If it wasn’t for some of the weirder, nonsensical decisions (baby Sonic couldn’t have found his way onto Earth in a more fitting fashion?), Sonic the Hedgehog would have actually exceeded expectations (well, the bar was set low). The difference between this and Pokémon: Detective Pikachu is that the oddities in Detective Pikachu felt like extensions of the video game franchise (“what if we lived in a world of transformative Dittos?”) done creatively (although unorthodox in execution). Here, the weirdness is all on the film making team, and it would have been borderline unsalvageable if we had the original Sonic making everything even creepier. Ah well. Sonic the Hedgehog isn’t too bad, but it loses points for deathly sloppy mistakes.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.