Sonic The Hedgehog 3 Review
This third entry goes big on the voice talent and explosions, but loses much of the fun of the first instalment.
Sonic (Ben Schwartz), Knuckles (Idris Elba) and Tails (Colleen O’Shaugnessey) team up to take down a mysterious and powerful new adversary, Shadow (Keanu Reeves). Shadow’s power is unlike anything they have ever seen, so to take down this powerful adversary, Team Sonic must partner with someone they never thought they would; Dr Ivo Robotnik (Jim Carrey).
The great thing about animation these days is that there are so many films that come out that are animated, and that are made for kids, but that are nevertheless great movies - and not just great kids movies. Look at Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, or indeed Paramount’s own Transformers One, which came out this year. These movies are fantastic, and while the latter never really blew up the box office, it was a sleeper excellent movie that a group of adults could sit down and enjoy as much as a family could.
The first Sonic The Hedgehog, despite its initial dramatic re-animating of the titular character, was fundamentally a bit of a fun time. The main character had the banter going, it had the fish out of water stuff, James Marsden was great as Tom, Sonic’s ‘human’, and it was amazing to see Jim Carrey back doing his thing. It wasn’t on the same level as those other great movies we’ve listed above, but it was a good movie. This new film leans into big name talent, explosions and needle drops, but most importantly leans into being a movie for kids, rather than one for kids and adults, and in doing so comes out as the worst of the trilogy so far.
The schtick that was Ben Schwartz’ performance as Sonic - all furry blue Ryan Reynolds-esque stuff - feels not only old and dated in 2024, as we generally bring a collective weariness to the constant zingy-ness of dialogue in the modern era, but also feels completely out of place in a movie that barely makes time for it.
This film is heavily focussed on the idea of being a team; Tails is constantly talking about it, and it is Sonic’s big lesson. But it is a lesson that is entirely unearned. Indeed, all of the fighting in the climactic action sequence is Sonic teamed up with Shadow, and we just watch Knuckles and Tails come on in to clean up the mess like a pair of glorified janitors, while Sonic takes the glory once again.
But they aren’t the only thankless heroes in this story, as James Marsden - once effectively the co-lead of this franchise - is relegated to absolute background for the vast majority of the film, before being effectively fridged at the end of the second act. The man deserves better.
Across the board, this film is largely insufferable from a performance perspective. The side characters are all phoning it in to an obscene level, and the only one who never seems to be doing so is Jim Carrey - but even Carrey can get extremely tiring when there are two of him and the director Jeff Fowler seems intent on giving him endless space to riff.
Coupled with action sequences that don’t hit and visuals that are mid at best, it leads to a film that feels overly long, underdeveloped and ultimately uninteresting.
You’ll be able to sit through it, and as one kid loudly proclaimed in our screening, kids will ‘love it’, but this is a movie that trades the moniker of ‘great movie’ for one you might be a little more used to as an adult watching a kids movie; ‘boring’.
