Sonic The Hedgehog 3: It's Not Bad!

I have a friend in college who is obsessed with Sonic The Hedgehog. I mean, this guy knows all the lore, all the characters, everything that there is to know about the world, and as someone who used to be obsessed with the universe of Star Wars, I perfectly understand how he feels. He lives up in Indiana, and I live in Georgia, so it's kind of a shame that I didn't get to go see Sonic The Hedgehog 3 with this guy, because he just clearly loves the franchise so much, and I know, understand, and appreciate passion when I see it. It would have been a fun theater experience, as I'm sure he loved this movie too. Believe me, he went to see it, and I don't even need to check to know that. Nonetheless and all of that said, while this franchise may not exactly be my cup of tea, I went to see Sonic's third outing with two of my best bros, and when we walked out of the theater an hour fifty later, we were all actually pretty surprised by this movie. In fact, the critic in me is kind of upset that he's not going to get to rip this one apart, because I may be a lot of things, but dishonest is not one of them, and this movie actually really surpassed my expectations in nearly every way. Sonic The Hedgehog 3 is a shockingly sound movie that, even if it may not fully escape some of the less desirable aspects of the franchise that it's a part of, is frankly a lot better than it has any right to be. It may not be a masterpiece that will etch its name into the history of cinema, but for what it was, it more than got the job done, and it's a film I'm happy to be able to review today.

To throw out that obligatory spoiler-free synopsis, the third outing in this series, titled Sonic The Hedgehog 3 to let us know that the filmmakers can count, focuses on the dynamic trio of Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails as they once again must join forces to face Shadow, a mysterious hedgehog who has broken out of a secret military facility.

One thing I noticed about this movie very early on is that it acts less like a proper threequel, and more like a third subsequent, standalone movie. Maybe. Granted, I haven't seen the first or second Sonic The Hedgehog, so perhaps I'm just out of the loop. That said, this film does introduce a lot of new plot points, and this is fine, but I noted that this is definitely the easier option, as opposed to crafting a true part three. The start of this film is surprisingly solid, taking a bit of much-needed downtime, which I didn't know was possible for films that have a stated goal of mixing live-action and animation, to say nothing of a Sonic movie. But yes, this movie gives us a little downtime at the beginning to show the normal lives of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, which ultimately makes their conflict with Shadow more effective when the darkest hedgehog of the lot does eventually show up. The conflicts we see at the start of the movie are very well-balanced, and the first act is ultimately pretty introspective for a video game movie, which surprised me in a lot of ways, good ones too. Even some of the inevitable exposition-dumping that we've come to expect from video game movies is played in a really intelligent manner, minus some MacGuffin reveals that could have spent significantly more time in the oven being alluded to. But as far as characterization throughout goes, it's surprisingly distinct, and I never found myself mixing characters up because of shortcomings in their writing. However, I would have preferred if some of the wise-cracking had been used more sparingly, as I did grow tired of all of the dialogue in this movie consisting more or less of jokes, though I've no doubt this movie's target audience appreciated Sonic and Co's smart mouth.

Switching to the subject of structure, the pacing of the movie is largely a win and is able to sustain its momentum effectively for the first two acts of the movie in ways that actually kind of destroyed all of my preconceived notions about this movie. Nevertheless, in the third act, Sonic The Hedgehog 3 does finally run into some speed bumps at very high speeds, and a lot of the plot complications in the third act consist of less-honest storytelling aspects like revelations that could have and should have been apparent from the start of the movie that suddenly reverse the plot of the film in circular and not-entirely-satisfying or honest ways. A lot of the less-satisfying tropes in the third act have to do with invented solutions to existing problems, and this was just pretty lazy on the part of a filmmaking team that had been surprisingly golden until now. In short, the film leans too heavily on MacGuffins in it's third act, and I wish that the team involved in the making of this movie had spent a little bit more time making the first two acts of the film more relevant to the end product.

But with all of this said and with all of my critiques laid out, I count myself genuinely surprised by Sonic The Hedgehog 3. It's far better than it has any right to be, and the first two-thirds of the movie is actually pretty strong. Unfortunately, the film does fly in a different direction in the third act, discounting a lot that had been built on plot development-wise. But I don't want to say that the movie was completely derailed because it wasn't and really did do a lot of things well regardless of its shortcomings. If I can be surprised by a Sonic The Hedgehog movie, I think that anything is possible now, and after all, a good two-thirds of a movie is still a good two-thirds of a movie, and a pleasant surprise is still a pleasant surprise. On the level of a concerned parent, this movie is pretty tame even when compared to an MCU film, and contains maybe five minor swear words as well as some largely-animated fantasy violence. Back on a critical level, sure, it's no The Last of Us, but as far as video game adaptations go, I can say that Sonic The Hedgehog 3 is easily better than I expected it to be, and I'm thoroughly and pleasantly surprised by this surprisingly solid video-game-based outing that, though it may be about a speedy hedgehog, didn't rush as many of its aspects as I expected, crossing the finish line in an imperfect but lively way that will more than satisfy fans of the Blue Hedgehog.

Sonic The Hedgehog 3 - 7/10

Ecclesiastes 4:12