Sonic the Hedgehog 2

After the commercial success of the 2020 Sonic the Hedgehog film, Paramount finally saw potential in the popular Sega speedster mascot and began expanding a fresh little universe for the character, with a follow-up sequel being their first step. While it wasn’t a critical darling and the rehashing of several outdated storylines from the 90s made it seem a little reductive to the series, the first film did appeal to many fans of the character, who were already burnt out from the poor treatment he had faced in the gaming space and appreciated the filmmaker’s attention to capturing the personality, tone and dumb fun coolness that came with the brand (especially after they changed the original horrific design in order to better suit that style). The second film continues that passion, but also does so with a lot of improvements all around. Now living comfortably with his human family, Sonic (voiced again by Ben Schwartz) wishes to become a hero, yet his reckless fool-hardy behaviour results in a lot of collateral damage that puts others in danger. Being at home alone while Tom and Maddie (played again by James Marsden and Tikka Sumpter) travel to Hawaii for the wedding of Tikka’s sister, Rachel (played again by Natasha Rothwell), Sonic is attacked by Robotnik (played again by Jim Carrey), who has returned from his intergalactic marooning with the help of a powerful Echidna named Knuckles (voiced by Idris Elba), who is working with Robotnik because he believes that Sonic knows the whereabouts of a powerful artifact known as the Master Emerald. After being saved by a two-tailed fox named Tails (voiced by Colleen O’Shaughnessey), Sonic decides to team up with this new ally and find the location of this Master Emerald before Robotnik finds it and gains the power to take over the world. Making around roughly the same amount at the box office as its previous and faring a little better critically, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 feels much more like a Sonic film than the first film, delivering an entertaining and fun experience with likeable characters and exciting action scenes.

The advent of video game adaptations was only just starting to catch on around the time of this film, with many trying harder to emulate and capture the spirit and direction of their original games in a way that feels respectable to the target audience, while also making it properly cinematic and mainstream. The first film really only had name recognition tying it to the source material outside of some choice references and a sense of energy, whereas this movie feels like it does much more to feel like traditional Sonic in the best way possible. The story is not very complicated or deep, the characters are fairly quick to grasp, and there aren’t going to be any strong life lessons learnt from this experience, but none of that is distracting or noticeable because the film just remembers to have fun, and it results in a good time. Instead of just watching Sonic doing mundane things that could happen in any CG/live-action hybrid movie from the past decade, this movie includes elements from the franchise in a way that doesn’t just feel like shoved-in fan-service and actually does a decent job at setting up a future for this world that people would actually want to see. It has a good pace, most of the actors are very charming to be around, the action is quick and flashy, and while the humor is still incredibly hit-or-miss with several bad lines that are almost shockingly lame in this day and age, there is still room left for moments to be fun, adventurous, and even cool. This come with a story written by returning screenwriters, Pat Casey, and Josh Miller, that is certainly predictable in many ways, but at least offers a narrative that is akin to its source material and doesn’t lose its specific personality in expected cliches. Even though the dialogue has a very high likelihood of containing something really dated, out-of-place and incredibly forced, it’s not a constant issue and that more than likely comes from the inclusion of new screenwriter, John Whittington, whose work on projects like some of the Lego Movie spin-offs undoubtedly assisted the film with adding a punchy and child-like, but still comprehensible tone of voice. Jeff Fowler as the director, who also returns from the previous film, does much better this time around, and despite a few moments feeling random and very bizarre (there is an entire section dedicated to the human characters that is so sporadically included that it borders on being unintentionally funny), it feels much more in line with what Sonic is.

With the first film being overpopulated with human characters who were more often than not annoying and pointless, seeing them in this film mostly being kept to the sidelines while Sonic and his crew take centre focus is appreciated. Even with that said, most of Sonic’s supporting cast in the games have also been criticized in the past for being pretty irritating, so they would also need some touch-ups in order to not fall into the same trap, especially now that they’re entering a medium where they need more than a cool design and power set to leave an impression. To the film’s credit, it seems to do that pretty well and manages to divide the attention between the leads and the supporting cast well enough that neither become too much, but neither feels entirely useless either. It’s true that people like James Marsden, Tikka Sumpter and the rest of the human characters are pretty bland and the random forced-in sub-plot feels totally useless, but they aren’t annoying to be around, both Marsden and Sumpter do have a nice connection with Sonic, and most of the actors are clearly talented, but just don’t have the material to back them up (Natasha Rothwell in particular looks pretty funny, yet never has anything funny to say). While some like Tom Butler and Adam Pally aren’t the best, and others like Shemar Moore and Lee Majdoub act fine enough, but don’t have very strong roles, they aren’t enough of a bother this time around at least. On the flip side, most of the Sonic cast are handled pretty well and make for a pretty good trio. Sonic contains the same level of likeable energy as would be expected for the character, Schwartz does a good job at making him confidant, but in a way that feels very much like that of a child so it’s never too much, and while the effects on him are still not especially real looking, it is an expressive design that is made very colorful and lively. Tails is not used in the film as much as you’d expect (he’s literally out of commission for most of the second act), but the moments he shares with Sonic are fairly cute and it is nice that they got Colleen O’Shaughnessey to reprise her role as the character for a film (although it’s weird that there’s been no other familiar voice actors return even for cameos). Knuckles is a pretty cool character in this, Idris Elba sounds great in the role, and his blunt, militant and ”action-over-thought” mentality does allow the character to be more enjoyably naïve as opposed to the games where he honestly comes across as too moody and pretty dumb. Jim Carrey feels much more comfortable as Robotnik this time around, with the character growing crazier and therefore giving Carrey reasons to act in an over-the-top zany manner rather than just because of his acting preferences. There are moments where he still goes too big for no reasons, but for the most part, he works pretty well, and he gets some good moments of being funny and even a little imposing.

As previously mentioned, most of the effects in the film aren’t the greatest in terms of looking real, but they are well handled and work well in bringing a lot of life and energy to the movie. It doesn’t feel limited by having to play itself really straight or in a way that doesn’t come across as too mindless, it’s allowed to be silly and go all out with some of the wacky set-ups put into play. While sometimes the film can present a pretty familiar scene that feels quite dated and stupid (watching Sonic and Tails dance to Uptown Funk is something nobody needed to see), it’ll be replaced later on with something like Sonic fighting Knuckles in an anime-esque fight sequence, or Tails flying his plane into battle against a gigantic Robotnik robot, or Sonic speeding through an ancient trap-ridden temple, it becomes much less gimmicky and more like the unique brand it’s based on. It has enough visual call-backs to the franchise to be recognizable, but it oddly has the restraint to not over stuff the film to the point of being obnoxious and overtly commercial with itself, letting the characters breath and run the film themselves. It’s made in a way that doesn’t require someone to be a fan to watch and get into these movies, but also contains enough nods to make it enjoyable for a fan who notices them. The action is pretty well handled, being upbeat, exciting and contains enough fun spectacle and even occasional good cinematography from Brandon Trost, which brings a sense of scale to some of these climatic fights, and while the score by Tom Holkenberg isn’t noticeable enough to be a very memorable piece and doesn’t even utilize the iconic sounds and tunes from the games in a remixed way to bank on nostalgia (it might get old really quickly, but it’s weird that it doesn’t even try), it does its job of serving the movie and making the big moments feel big and the intimate moments feel intimate.

It’s weird to think that Sonic has actually become a little more popular as a film franchise than as a gaming one, as his latest entries in the gaming space have been at best enjoyed within the fan base but not to a huge scale, and at worst laughed off the podium for being too experimental and forgetting what made the character popular to begin with. The first film almost acts like a showcase of that latter mentality; trying something different for the character (which in this case is ironically putting him in something more cliched and generic) and seeing how that works, while the sequel acts as a good showcase of the former mindset; giving people what they want and reciprocating accordingly. While it’s hard to say that this will win everybody over as it still didn’t do great with critics, it feels like this is the one to truly start with if you want to see this world and this iconic gaming legend as it truly should be. The characters are likeable, the film has great energy and personality, the effects and action are fun, and while the writing can be noticeably awkward and lame and some of the side characters are still too generic, it makes for a much better package this time around. Not an amazing film, but definitely a solid feature for the fastest thing alive.