Sonic The Hedgehog - Cheap Thoughts

The more movies you watch, the more you realise that sometimes a mediocre movie can be even worse than a bad movie. Sonic The Hedgehog is soft, simple and pandering with little to actually offer to make it a memorable experience. It’s almost difficult to explain the basics of the plot because if you’ve seen any movie, literally, any movie then you’ve seen this one. A film that begins In Media Res by cutting straight to the climax to show Sonic (Ben Schwartz) running and Dr Robotnik (Jim Carrey) blowing up the scenary in casualty-free mayhem and destruction because the film is so desperate to grab your attention that it feels you’ll be bored by the character set-up that’s to come because it knows it won’t interest any audience. Following that is a completely inconsequential and unfitting backstory that shows Sonic being raised by a wise owl (A new creation for the film) who within less than 2 minutes sends Sonic away and is never seen or mentioned again. From there is where the film becomes the formulaic blur.

Sonic is being hunted by the government, meets Tom (James Marsden) who agrees to take him on a road trip to San Francisco to find his way to freedom. Along the way the two make it explicitly clear what their goals are and has character arcs spoon-fed to you like a baby. Because it honestly seems this film was made with the mindset that this would be the first film you have ever seen so it needs to make everything blatantly obvious. For example, it’s established early on that Sonic is lonely, and has spent several years by himself and is desperate for friends, in one moment where the film goes quiet to express that Sonic is alone, he then has to verbalise this moment by saying “I’m alone” as if you couldn’t quite get that. Continue that method of storytelling for 90 minutes and you have this film.

There’s something upsetting about making a Sonic film without any teeth. By modern standards, Sonic The Hedgehog is not cool or edgy, but he is cool and edgy for kids. He has a carefree attitude who rebelled against authority, did what he wanted and stayed cool in every situation with a cheesy family friendly rock soundtrack backing him up. This Sonic is cowardly, and desperate, and is constantly shouting one-liners and soon to be dated pop-culture references that offer no comedy or charm. Finish it all off with a white bread hip hop tune during the end credits and you have the perfect representation of removing any appeal that came from this character in the first place. It is somewhat of a conundrum to describe this film as identical to every other movie made when it’s simultaneously a film that will be forgotten as soon as you go the bed tonight, except for of course the few moments of deeper fan-service that at most equate to chuckle worthy gags and promises for better movies in the future because this film didn’t have the guts to commit to the franchise it was adapting.

It’s at a point where it might have been better to keep the original design and for the film to crash and burn, because a car crash is more interesting to watch than the fender bender that is this film.

-Danny