It's been a rocky road for video game properties being turned into feature films, and "Sonic The Hedgehog" shows that the tide is turning.
Rating: 3.5/5
Based on the popular Sega game, "Sonic The Hedgehog" follows the extraterrestrial speedster as he finds a home on Earth after he fled his home world.
Sonic (Ben Schwartz) ends up staying under the radar but after new forms of his powers present themselves, the US government tasks Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) to find him and neutralise the possible threat.
When the first trailer of this movie dropped last year, the internet was collectively horrified with the character design which led to the film being pushed back from its initial release date; giving the VFX studio time to redesign Sonic and make him more faithful to the video games.
This did help the film and the new design works perfectly and pushing the movie back might have been a blessing in disguise when looking at the US box office numbers.
The film as a whole is great. The screenwriters struck the perfect balance of making a film aimed at kids but also making it very enjoyable for adults. While the humour is mostly very wholesome, there are times where they throw jokes in that kids won't get but will cause a lot of chuckle from adults.
The characters are also surprisingly on point. I fully went into this movie expecting the worst and ended up finding Sonic very endearing and this is largely due to Schwartz's voice acting.
Another thing that stood out was Carrey's portrayal of Dr. Robotnik. It's so good to have Carrey be in a well written comedic role where he can use his physical humour which we haven't seen in a while.
I also have to commend the director Jeff Fowler for the way he handled the story and didn't confine himself into just being faithful to the video games and animated series. While Dr Robotnik is still a moustache-twirling villain, he has layers and isn't one-note. There also obvious homoerotic undertones with Robotnik and his henchman Agent Stone (Lee Majdoub) which was unexpected but appreciated.
The story as a whole makes sense and the way Thomas Michael "Tom" Wachowski (James Marsden) and Sonic end up becoming friends feels logical and organic.
This is truly a fun ride and dare I say it - the best video game movie that been made. If you are a fan of this video game legend, then this is a must-see movie.