Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)
This Valentine's Day, put a ring on it.
A trailer came out, and people went nuts - but not really in a good way. People ripped into the effects work, to such an extent that extra work had to be done to change it. Really, that’s a somewhat interesting on it’s own right, as you really don’t get that from trailer feedback and movie studios - but it doesn’t end there. In a bizarre twist, the internet went ballistic about something and then supported it when changes were made! That is to say, usually the internet will get in an uproar about something - like “will not buy if changes aren’t made1” and then buy it anyways, whereas this time around people seemed to stick to the word and thought of “if it changes you have my money.” So it did better than anyone would have though, but how much of it is because it’s a good movie and how much is for good intentions? Tonight, we go fast with the movie version of Sonic The Hedgehog.
The story here isn’t going to be so much that people can’t follow it. It’s a family movie, first and foremost. We get our blue alien hedgehog with special powers, having to hide them to be safe and not doing so because hey, kids you know, and getting into trouble. Rings are used as trans-universal traveling systems here, allowing a person to essentially teleport through it to another location (like a Stargate, if your old enough to get that reference). So the blue alien ends up on Earth, having learned his lesson about having to stay hidden to stay safe, and it makes for a lonely little blue hero who really just wants to have friends. On the other end of this, you have a small town cop who dreams of bigger things - more exciting things. The two end up crossing paths and antics ensue as everybody gets to learn a valuable life lesson while cracking some jokes and not worrying too much about the carnage that may or may not be left behind.
So they story beats all feel generic for the family-movie going crowd - which is at least not a negative thing. Of course, the movie is made up of a bunch of actors - one of which is certainly a CG little creature, but even that one is voiced. The actors do a pretty good job of keeping a comedy tone throughout the entire movie. At times, a character or two might have a little internal crisis, and they do a good job of showing it with their body language and line deliveries. Yes, even the CG Sonic does a pretty good job of that, albeit frequently deciding to overkill it with a narration to tell us that’s he feeling lonely, despite it being pretty obvious. Still, most of the movie follows an upbeat stride, and the actors in turn usually play it pretty loose and hammy - which might not be as enjoyable for some, but I wouldn’t think the people who would fault the movie for not being super serious are really the ones that went out to watch it in the first place. Nothing is really super offensive - at least not such that you’d really feel bad for taking your kids to watch it - but some of the jokes could be over kids heads or a bit low-brow for the common adult. I give props to the cop character for doing a likeable job with his character, and also am happy to note that Carry gave me exactly what I expected out of him given the trailer.
I’m going to throw this out there - I think most family movies don’t exactly have the best characters. As far as development standards go, they usually have a great record of taking at least one (if not a group) of characters in one spot at the start and developing them into someone else by the end - it’s somewhat required in order to accomplish there “drive home a message” way of story telling. In the case here, Sonic learns to chill out a little and the weight of responsibility to go with is powers, and in the case of the cop it’s more a story of more fully appreciating what you have and the importance of that. In the case of the baddy - well, he doesn’t learn a whole lot I would think, but it does speak a bit about bullying and the power of the mind I guess? Still, past that, the characters are enjoyable, but don’t overly feel super deep - this doesn’t play out like some drama-based thriller where each character has more layers than an ogre, it keeps things simple.
More like road trippin’ am I right?
Effects are an important part of this movie - heck, it’s part of what makes the story of this movie so interesting, as mentioned in the intro. The new, more cartoony looking sonic does feel much more faithful to the game counterparts then the original thing created - although I didn’t have as harsh a reaction to it as some people did. It jives well with the comic-like whimsical nature of the light-speed blue spike-boy. It never really feels as though all the CG elements are totally in the scene though, but that’s the nature of taking something more animated and slapping it into the real world - it doesn’t offend the uncanny valley sense, but it does tend to stand out much further because it doesn’t try. In most cases, despite the CG effects being obviously CG, they still look good. Drones are clean and somewhat cute at times. Sonic has enough detail with spines and facial animations that he feels like effort got put in. Explosions, car spins, things flipping, and even stopped time scenes all look more than passable. A few scenes even make for some really neat snapshots. It’s an enjoyable enough movie, and the effects board doesn’t require a lot of nails to keep it hanging on the wall nicely.
The audio is also, surprise surprise, pretty much what you’d expect. You got your pop songs, you get some scoring in there to provide some classical backup and help drive emotions. Balance is done well, you don’t have trouble hearing things. Line deliveries are done quite well, and most reactions are well and enjoyable enough when heard. Plenty of sounds are worked in from the source as well - such as the occasional sound the rings make pulled straight from the games. Sets are well enough here on Earth, but the alternate worlds of computer-land (aka the ones made from CG) are the more interesting to look at. We don’t get a lot of them - really just two besides our planet - but it’s enough to add a little flavor outside the norm. Of course, we also get little snapshots of plenty of locations outside of small town and big city as well, even if it’s pretty much a montage style presentation.
Now, I haven’t exactly kept up with a ton of the Sonic games past the “my generation” stages. I’ve got the old Sega ones, but I really haven’t played anything past the first Sonic Adventures on Dreamcast. That said, they do have a lot of little references in this to those. You get the echidna tribe looking like Knuckles, you’ve got the town name - Green Hills - and the plethora of sound effects worked in. I don’t remember the original story in this ever being a part of it though, so take that for what you will. It’s enough little eggs that you don’t feel like they ignore the sources at all, but not so many that you’d be lost in the movie because of them. By far, the one everyone would be most conflicted on is probably Robotnik, but by the end I think it all comes together - but maybe that’s just me enjoying Carry eating every minute of this movie up fogging up any issues.
Sweet shot.
It’s a pretty decent family movie. I personally don’t think it’s going to unthrone the original Mortal Kombat as my personal favorite game-based movie, but it does come as one of the good ones, and certainly probably has the most interesting story attached to it. Keep in mind amongst all the “best video game movie ever!” that it’s still a family movie and you should probably have the proper temper to your expectations. Of course, this is coming from a dude whose had fun with plenty of other ones as well - even if I wouldn’t call all of those movies that I enjoyed good by any stretch. It’s colorful, it’s got jokes, it’s well enough acted and in the end it’s enjoyable enough for a family that it does it job.