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Controversy surrounding the release of a film based on a popular video game franchise is certainly nothing new, but few were as initially groaned at by fans as the 2020 film based on Sega’s flagship character, Sonic the Hedgehog. This film is possibly most infamous for its initial teaser trailers, which was teeming with watered-down set pieces, a ridiculously out-of-place insertion of Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise”, and Sonic’s horridly over-detailed redesign. So mocked was this grotesque looking, “realistic” (read: creepy) appearance of the film’s take on the Blue Blur that Paramount actually had the film delayed so that the film’s visual effects team could give the character a much-needed visual overhaul. From there, the film seemed to gradually change between trailers, and not just in the case of the hedgehog’s final design- gone was the overemphasis on the more realistic elements, replaced with more scenes of Sonic running in various locales- some real, and some based on the original games’ levels. While reception to the strange, uneven tonal changes were mixed, audiences’ reactions to the supposed increase in faithfulness to the games were certainly met with praise.
Prior to these changes, “Sonic the Hedgehog” seemed to have the markings of a typical failed video game-to-film adaptation: a license is picked up by a major studio that has so little faith in the IP that it tries to make the film more crowd-pleasing and realistic, which results in their fears of failure becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead, “Sonic the Hedgehog ended up breaking the finished project actually ended up in a strange middle ground between Hollywood realism and relative faithfulness to the look and feel of the games. Shockingly, this approach rendered the movie much better that it had any business being, though it’s not completely safe from the drawbacks of this adaptation approach. So, what’s the story of this take on the fastest character in gaming?
After escaping to Earth from a world beyond our own, Sonic (voiced by Ben Schwartz), a blue hedgehog with the ability to run at supersonic speeds, lives in hiding away from human society to avoid being exploited for his power. He lives a free, yet lonely life running across the town of Green Hills, Montana, and an emotional running mishap results in a great energy discharge followed by a city-wide power outage. Following this, the U.S. Department of Defense enlists the brilliant, yet deranged and egotistical Dr. Ivo Robotnik (Jim Carrey) to investigate the source of the outage, and the mad doctor sees this as an opportunity to harness the hedgehog’s speed as a power source. On the run for his life and left with few options, Sonic travels to San Francisco with Tom Wachowski (James Marsden), the local police sheriff, who is forced to aid the hedgehog’s escape and put his plans to changes departments on hold when Sonic’s missing portal rings and Robotnik’s reckless pursuit both pose a threat to Green Hills and possibly the world.
“Sonic the Hedgehog” is probably one of the most difficult video game licenses to adapt into any sort of film narrative, since the title character and his supporting cast have been subjected to all sorts of changing story beats and settings. The earlier, more cartoonish games, for instance, were more or less consistently set on the animal-populated world of Mobius, while later games attempted (with mixed results) to place the characters in a comparatively grounded world resembling our own. With all of the incarnations and tonally different games that occupy the “Sonic” series, it’d be an understatement to say that picking any one approach to a film adaptation would be a difficult task, but what makes this film even stranger than the more modern “Sonic” games is the decision to fall into that aforementioned middle ground. Granted, there are both positives and negatives to the execution of the final release, so I’m going to first discuss what this film does right, since it actually manages to be entertaining in several ways.
Though I came in knowing that this film was aimed at the average children audience, there were some points in the movie’s favor that made in remarkably enjoyable. The first and most obvious of those positives is the film’s portrayal of Sonic himself. Even though the new design must have really thrown the film’s visual team through a loop, its implementation here is quite impressive. This movie’s Sonic is expressive, fluidly animated, and charmingly cartoonish while having just enough realistic detail as to look more impressive than uncanny. He’s also voiced well by Ben Schwartz, who manages to channel some of Sonic voice actor Roger Craig Smith’s wisecracking charm into the blue blur in spite of “movie Sonic” being more naive and curious than in the original games. The jokes in the movie are very hit-or-miss, but Schwartz delivers them with enough energy that even the cringe-worthy one liners are charming. The performances of the human actors are also on-point and chuckle worthy, and what could have been a dull non-entity of a human deuteragonist in Sheriff Wachowski manages to be a likable character thanks to James Marsden’s charming, down-to-earth performance. The story they’re in may be a fairly standard buddy road trip narrative, but Tom and Sonic manage to have some surprising chemistry despite the film’s brisk pace, and they end up making an amusing double act. The best performance here, however, in unmistakably that of Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik. At first, it seems like he’s falling into the same manic shtick that made him famous in films like “The Mask” and “Ace Ventura”, but as the film progresses, he delivers an ideal interpretation for an alternate take on the mad doctor, and he’s at his best when he gets to portray Robotnik’s trademark megalomania and gleeful villainy. What stuck out as the film’s greatest strength to me, however, was its action cinematography and direction. Director Jeff Fowler should be commended for his composition of the running and chase scenes, and given that this is his feature directorial debut, it’s especially impressive. When Sonic runs fast enough to make time seem to slow, it’s directed with manic energy and style, and there are some great POV running shots in this film that evoke fond memories of Sonic Adventure for me. It’s clear that there was some real passion for the character and his game series among the filmmakers, and when that passion is on display (via the aforementioned action scenes and the use of musical leitmotifs from the games), it makes for a fun, undemanding popcorn movie.
It’s when the film tries to spin its own narrative, however, that the flaws in the product as a whole start to show. Nowhere is the movie’s weakness more apparent than in its pacing, which, much like its title character, goes a mile a second without much in the way of slow scenes. While its true that most children’s films are briskly paced by most standards, the introduction of Sonic’s origins, his loneliness, and the catalyst to Robotnik’s entrance into the story are all thrown out much too quickly, and the encroachment of Robotnik’s robots means that the main characters aren’t given too much time to interact in spite of that aforementioned chemistry. Plot elements like Sonic’s home world, Robotnik’s reasons for descending into crazed villainy, and story homages to the world of the games are all hand-waved and given but minor glimpses, even though those are exactly what makes the film even stand out in the first place. It genuinely feels like these distinguishing story elements were cut down to make room for that “buddy road comedy” story, which is fairly predictable and standard when left on its own. The average viewer will likely predict where everyone will end up by the end, and when the world of the movie will actually start resembling the world of the game. In other words, this movie was severely crippled by its decision to be set on Earth, because it’s at its worst when its trying to be more conventional.
To paraphrase a tired expression, “Sonic the Hedgehog” is a movie that takes two steps forward, then nervously takes one and a half steps back. Kids, Sonic fans, or anyone looking for a reasonably entertaining and relatively impressive video game movie will probably enjoy this, but after seeing the passion and sense of wonder injected into “Detective Pikachu”, the film only comes across as slightly above average.
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