Does Sonic Break the Curse of Video Game - Movies? (Sonic the Hedgehog)

Video game movies have been struggling for years. They range from either horribly bad to mediocre. With the release of Sonic the Hedgehog, does the blue blur break the cycle of less than great video game movies? Or does it fall for into the same hole of it's predecessors?

Well to begin - Let's discuss Sonic's design, both visual and otherwise. I enjoy his overall appearance. Of course, there's the controversy of what his old look was like- I won't cover that too much. Instead, I'll state that I like his cute design we see in the final release. He looks like Sonic and I feel he sounds like himself as well. Sonic in the movie is played by Ben Schwartz, that you may know as the voice of Dewey from the Ducktales reboot.

Personally, the voice of Roger Craig Smith ( Sonic from the games ) is the definitive voice of the blue hedgehog. That is to say, Ben Schwartz does play a decent Sonic, even if his voice is identical to that of Dewey's. And as far as Sonic's personality goes- it's passable. We seem to be going on this adventure with a younger Sonic, so his juvenile nature is appropriate. Overall, this iteration of Sonic gets a passing grade from me.

How about Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik? As far as character visuals go - he's fine. Of course he isn't the incredible mass that Eggman is in the game ( thank God. I think Carrey gaining that weight would kill him ) but his overall look is fine. Throughout the film he gradually develops more visually into the Doctor from the games but for the most part he just looks like Jim Carrey. Personality wise? I think it's a bit of a miss. The character in the movie here isn't done wrong, mind you. They thankfully don't turn Eggman into a.... say, rich and power real estate / business man who is trying to turn the human race into monies. However, Carrey shows a villian that is certainly eccentric but not necessarily the evil, mustache twirling bad guy from the game.

From my experience in the games- Eggman is either terrifyingly evil or a goofy, turn the world into a theme park bad guy. Carrey falls into a weird middle ground where he is a robotics genius and pretty eccentric. He's not a bad character by any stretch, but he isn't a faithful reimagining of Dr. Eggman.

The rest of the characters left little to no impression on me. John Martsen's character, Tom, is with us throughout the whole film. The only enjoyable part of his personality is how willing he is to do pretty much anything. He goes along with quite a lot, which is both enjoyable and frustrating. I wish he was more hesitant on certain things - Helping Sonic recover his rings - but also liked that he was willing to indulge in Sonic's antics.

The other two characters that I have to make mention of are Tom's fiancé and sister-in-law. Maddie, played by Tika Sumpter, and Rachel, played by Natasha Rothwell, are fantastic. They are easily the funniest parts of the movie, and it's mostly just their reactions to the insanity happening around them. They have some of the best quips in the movie.

With the characters laid out, what about the plot of the movie? It's very... mediocre and middle of the line. My biggest gripe with the movie is that it doesn't really do anything new. The plot, especially, is one I've seen countless times. If you've watched a children's comedy in the last couple years you've seen this movie.

So the movie starts with young Sonic living on a different planet / different dimension. Presumably this is Mobius, however I don't believe we're ever given the name. Child Sonic is living with an owl named Longclaw, a character that- to my knowledge, never existed in the canon before.

Longclaw urges Sonic to be careful with his power, because people will try to steal it and use it for their own purposes. The tree house they are living in gets raided by Echidna, the same species as Knuckles. Longclaw gives Sonic magic rings that teleport him to Earth and instructs him to use the rings if he ever gets found.

Some time passes and Sonic is now a teenager. He lives vicariously through the citizens of Green Hill. One day he realizes how alone he is and begins running as fast as he can around a baseball diamond. An energy surge shoots out of Sonic and knocks out the power of the entire West Coast.

The power outage alerts the military who immediately calls in Dr. Robotnik to investigate. Sonic realizes their looking for him and that he'll have to escape to a mushroom world, like longclaw instructed. Sonic is unable to do it in his makeshift home, so he runs to Tom's home to do it there. Tom is home during that time, getting things ready for his move to San Francisco.

Tom catches Sonic and fires a tranquilizer into him, causing him to drop his rings through a portal to San Francisco. Tom is then visited by Robotnik and defends Sonic, starting their adventure to San Francisco to get the rings.

Does this sound familiar yet? Character A is a magic being / has a troubled back story. Character B wants more out of life than what they have ( in Tom's case, he wants to be a city cop instead of a small time suburb cop. He wants to be a hero ).

Character A's antics cause Character B to get wrapped up in the adventure where they have to travel to a magic thing so things can go back to normal. They are chased by an antagonist who may or may not be a symbol of the old ways / life pre-adventure.

Character A and Character B have a big fight about halfway through, with Character B deciding he doesn't want to deal with Character A anymore. Character A either has a fake out death or Character B has some huge plot revelation and the two are reunited and have a stronger relationship.

Character A and B reach the magic thing and have a showdown with the villain. They then decide the other is exactly what they needed and live together.

This movie's plot is the same as countless others before it. To name a few: Toy Story, Onward, The Emperor's New Groove – If you have seen a movie that focuses on two protagonists traveling to a McGuffin, then you have unfortunately seen this movie.

Does that mean I you should skip this movie? No, I don't think so. You may not even have a problem with the plot, especially since it's not necessarily a bad one. There's a possibility here that I'm not the intended demographic for this movie. This film is intended for a younger audience, not necessarily the older gamers that grew up with the character. Is there something for those older gamers? I'm sure there can be. Is there something here for me? I don't believe so. I'm glad I watched the movie but I don't believe I will ever own a copy or actively seek it out to watch again. That being said, should it happen to be on or when a sequel comes out – I'll definitely tune in.

With that being said, I would give Sonic the Hedgehog a 6/10. An above average film to be sure, one that gave me quite a few laughs, but also one that doesn't really do anything too amazing.

What do you folks think? I know at least one person who happily gives the movie an 8/10 ( check him out at twitch.tv/reonan89 ). Do you agree with my rating or do you think the movie is better than what I gave it? Let me know in the comments and consider subscribing ( for free ) to this blog so that you receive email updates any time I post. Thank you all so much for reading and as always, Good Night and Joy be with you all.