Sonic The Hedgehog (2020)

SONIC

HE CAN REALLY MOVE

SONIC

HE'S GOT AN ATTITUDE

HE'S THE FASTEST THING ALIVE

HE'S THE FASTEST THING ALIIIIIIIIVE

Man, this sure had a long leadup, am I right? Like Ghostbusters 2016, most of the buzz about the movie didn't really have all that much to do with the movie and occurred way before it premiered. But that's all "hype." It's all "marketing." So what's the deal with this thing? Did a more photogenic Sonic save it?

Eh. It was okay.

It really disappoints me to say that, but I can't claim I didn't see it coming. The studio did what lazy studios do when trying to reintroduce a franchise character to an audience they underestimate: They done plopped Sonic in the real world, with very little connecting to anything a Sonic fan would remember. Sure, there's rings, robots, he says, "Gotta go fast!" once, but they didn't bother trying to adapt anything.

Say what you will about the more current releases, but Sonic stories weren't always hamfisted trash. The first two games communicated themes of nature vs. technology very well just through level progression. Sonic 3 & Knuckles had a pretty good story, with Robotnik remaking the Death Egg on the fallen Angel Island, Knuckles thinking Sonic was part of it, and eventually Robotnik steals the Master Emerald and Sonic has to go Super to stop him. Now it's certainly no Final Fantasy 7, but with textless cutscenes they did a good job,

So what I'm saying is, this movie subtracted more than it added. Sonic's world, sometimes known as Mobius, gets a single scene early in the film before he's fled to Earth and the rest of our film takes place. But not before an opening so cliche, I think in the last 10 years there's been more parodies than straight uses: In the middle of the end-movie action scene, the screen pauses and Sonic narrates to the audience, "So, I bet you're wondering how we got here." I'm shocked the filmmakers had the restraint to not use a record scratch. He also has an Owl Mom for some reason, and echidnas are trying to capture him. But that don't get resolved. This is really just an origin story for Robotnik, and even then we're only catching the tail-end of it. He's already a pretty evil machinist in the beginning, it's just by the end he has a wacky mustache and hates Sonic.

Jim Carrey was pretty good, as I'm sure most people thought he would be. He doesn't quite bring the Grinch-level energy I've come to hope for, but it's certainly not bad. James Marsden was Mr. Bland the Human Actor, really not much to say there. Sonic. Sonic Sonic Sonic. I mean, he was more tolerable than he was in Lost World. Ben Schwartz did fine, I thought it would be really distracting, but by the end I felt the voice fit just fine. Sonic as a character is like a hyperactive kid, which I guess is fitting enough. He doesn't so much learn a lesson as get everything he wanted, but I wasn't really expected some hard-hitting emotional truth from this.

It's funny that nothing but the video games ever has any consistent idea of what rings are for. In the one cartoon called SatAM, they gave him some kinda power boost, they never show up at all in the whimsical cartoon or the OVA, and in this movie they make portals. It's not something really important, just a little thing I wanted to mention.

But yeah, there was nothing especially terrible about Sonic (LIKE THERE COULD HAVE BEEN) but nothing make it stand out. They took all the safe routes, which means it couldn't have attained any real highs or lows. I wonder what we could've gotten if they'd taken a chance on a full CGI movie in the Sonic universe. I guess we'll never know. Maybe if there's a sequel it could expand on that, but honestly I don't think we'll be going anywhere fantastical.

Sonic The Hedgehog Redesigned Trailer

This is weird. It's an unprecedented oddity that a company previewed a product, everyone hated what they saw, and not only did the company decide to redo the thing that everybody hates, but they pushed back the release date to make it more fair for the artists involved and as the final kicker, it actually looks like an improvement over the original product.

Has that happened before? It's sort of been a thing with video games, but that's after a product has already released and they patch it for people who have bought it. But this is a movie! It's at most a solid 2 hours of images on a screen that nobody's actually seen yet.

Let's be honest, usually the internet adding input to any creative endeavor is a recipe for disaster. Remember Boaty McBoatface? Remember that 4chan exists? So, to put it lightly, I'm flabbergasted.

I mean, hell. He looks like Sonic now. Like, actually Sonic. They got the guy who made the best Sonic cartoon ever made to do it.

Honored to have been brought in to lead the design on the new Movie Sonic. Working with Jeff and the modelers, riggers, texture/fur artists and animators in LA, London, and Vancouver was a thrill I'll never forget. #SonicMovie pic.twitter.com/HhcVIxAhXB

— Tyson Hesse (@tyson_hesse) November 12, 2019

I didn't see that coming. Especially after Monster Sonic. Can we talk about Monster Sonic for a minute?

As you're all doubtless aware of, I have to watch bad movies. There's something insidious in my brain that makes me do it. I was fucking on board to watch this blue abomination traipse across the screen while sounding like Rutabaga Rabitowitz. Hell, I turned up to watch Sherlock Gnomes on opening day, this would be nothing.

So now I'm a bit torn. Actors have said there weren't any reshoots involved, meaning the only thing that has changed is the design of Sonic himself. All the writing, all the voice acting and human actors are remaining the same. So really, my opinion shouldn't change that much from the initial trailer. I'm not expecting Spider-Verse over here. They altered the feel of the trailer somewhat from the first draft, and I'm not completely on board. Gangster's Paradise was an unexpected choice, to say the least, but it was distinct. This time they used Blitzkrieg Bop. The most overused track in existence. Oh wait! They added more high-hat at the end and slapped in some video game noises! Totally different now.

Let's be honest with ourselves. Any Sonic fan that still exists is used to a lot of shit. Name a Sonic game (apart from Mania) that's overall actually good in the last ten years. Okay, nix Generations as well. There ain't much there. So if the movie's pretty bad (which I am still expecting) then it's pretty par for the course for Sonic. I expect to enjoy Jim Carrey as I always do, but like, the rest of it doesn't seem like it's gonna have a high grade of quality here. It looks like a movie from the 90's, like Masters of the Universe. The old trope where a popular character's movie has them leave their own world and enter THE REAL WOOOORLD. It's been played out over a decade ago, but then again everything good about Sonic was left in that era. Regardless of how it turns out, I'm still going to see it because it releases on Valentine's Day and I need something to distract me from the monstrous gaping void of loneliness that threatens to engulf my very essence.