'Sonic the Hedgehog 3' Is a Tonal Mess and also the Best One Yet
It took three movies to assemble a proper cast, but at least we're here now.
The first Sonic the Hedgehog movie is strange. Even if you can get past the “What were they thinking with Ugly Sonic?”, the plot involves taking a character defined by speed and putting him in a car where he can’t use it. Thankfully, director Jeff Fowler has managed to churn out two more of these movies in only four years, and with Sonic the Hedgehog 3, he’s arrived at where the series probably should have been the entire time: Sonic hanging out with other Sonic characters.
This is no disrespect to James Marsden, Tika Sumpter, and all the other human characters invented for the movie to avoid tossing non-Sonic fans in the deep end. But Sonic as the fish-out-of-water plot only takes you so far, and when we see characters we know, we’d prefer to see them interact with characters from their universe. Let Sonic be Sonic, and put him alongside Tails, Knuckles, and the whole crew.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 finally figures that out by mostly moving the non-video game characters to the side and emphasizing ones from the games. This time out, Sonic (Ben Schwartz), Tails (Colleen O'Shaughnessey), and Knuckles (Idris Elba) reluctantly team up with Dr. Ivo Robotnik (Jim Carrey) to stop the powerful new foe, Shadow (Keanu Reeves). It turns out that Shadow also has a Robotnik on his side, Ivo’s grandfather, Gerald (Carrey again). The pair wants to steal a set of keys that will give them access to a super weapon and then take revenge on the world.
The movie always feels like it’s on far firmer ground when it’s dealing with characters from the games than anything else. Fan service can be tedious, and there are certainly moments where the crowd at my screening cheered, and I was at a loss as to why, but it can also be a useful handrail, especially if all you have to work with is, “Furry creatures who go fast.” If the new film works as a Sonic movie, it’s because Fowler knows that by the third installment, we’re either going to buy these animated creatures hanging out with each other or we won’t.
Where Sonic the Hedgehog 3 gets weird is in its tonality. I will not attempt to unpack the decades of Sonic mythology. Perhaps there is some way to reconcile the history of the games with the plot of the movie. I will say that once again, Carrey is off in his own movie, and while I know I should hate that—be part of the ensemble, Jim!—I’m too much of a sucker for his shtick. It is that vintage, scenery-chewing Jim Carrey that I grew up with, and now there are two of him. I was giggling like a child whenever he was bouncing around the screen, and so it goes.
But all of that is in the same movie where Shadow, a black hedgehog who runs fast, is mourning the death of his friend, a teenage girl. The movie and Reeves are playing Shadow as serious as a heart attack, and then the movie has Carrey standing next to him, making puns about the giant robotic crab they use for transportation. Then you pile on an emotional arc for Sonic where he has to learn not to give into his anger and become consumed with rage like Shadow, and you can get whiplash not only from scene to scene but shot to shot.
To say Sonic the Hedgehog 3 works or is even a good movie feels like a bit of a stretch, but it also feels like it has the firmest grasp on what this franchise should be going forward. We live in an age now where franchises run on so long that they can reinvent and repurpose themselves into better versions if they get enough installments. Fast & Furious started out being about street racing and stealing DVD players, and it found more popularity as a globe-trotting special ops story. Mission: Impossible grew stronger as it emphasized the team and the Tom Cruise stunt spectacular. Maybe if we get more Sonic movies, the Blue Blur will look like he hasn’t missed a step.