Movie Review: Sonic the Hedgehog 3

Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails must deal with a powerful new foe that has been awakened from a multi-decade slumber.

The Dark Herald has a good review here. I agree with him about Mufasa and the recent direction Disney has taken, of using hyper-realistic CGI retellings and sequels. The big disconnect is the mismatch between human voice acting accompanying near-expressionless animal faces. Compare how much more character is embedded into this still image of Scar from the original The Lion King, to the whatever movie the remade CGI Scar was in. You can’t, because there is no comparison:

Anyways, this is about Sonic, not Mufasa. There wasn’t any deviation in style from the previous two Sonics, which means it will appeal to the pre-teen and slightly younger demo (as of this writing, Sonic 3 is rated a generous 7.4 on imdb.com). Keanu Reeves is there for star attraction as Shadow’s voice—Reeves’ voice by itself is somewhat memorable but voice acting isn’t his thing, and his performance here can’t keep up with the power trio of Ben Schwartz, Idris Elba, and Colleen O’Shaughnessey. Elba isn’t primarily a voice actor but he really nails Knuckles’ grim grandiosity.

A few bumbles. Commander Walters delivering to the Sonic team one half of a key that can activate a world-ending weapon, while in full ceremonial dress—as a tall white guy in the middle of Japan, no less—beggars belief. The corpse of a high-ranking military commander on the wrong side of the world is going to raise a lot of questions and unwanted attention. Such an easy way to fix this: Walters could have just hired someone to deliver a message and the key to Sonic and Co., using a holograph of Walters or something as proof that the messenger is real. The holograph could self-destruct after they watch it to hide evidence. The Sonic universe has the technology for all of that, loosely. The delivery could even be triggered by a deadman switch, if the writers really need Walters dead, and you’d save having a death scene for a secondary character the kids probably don’t identify with in the first place. I know this is a kid’s movie, and some their fledgling minds might not notice, but respecting the audience should be a thing.

Shadow’s angsty backstory was almost all the way there for me. His relationship with Maria was genuinely touching, and you end up do feeling for the guy—and Maria, for that matter—when you find out what happens to her. Maria showed him unconditional kindness and friendship, but there wasn’t any big indicator that Shadow suffered from rejection before that. He was captured, sure, but he wasn’t mistreated much. I wanted to see him “grow up” being ostracized in one way or another. True and thorough social ostracism can be absolute hell for the victim, and Shadow going through that his attachment to Maria profoundly deeper. According to Sonic lore, though, Shadow was artificially created with some alien boss’ DNA specifically for experimentation, so he didn’t have a standard childhood to really stage that kind of mistreatment.

Krysten Ritter was terribly miscast in the military brass role. There’s nothing in the presence of a 100 pound beanpole of a pretty thirty-something woman that would inspire confidence in subordinates, no matter what shade of lipstick she has on. Image matters, especially in matters of international security leadership.

There was one bit of dialogue that felt really out of place. There was a diegetic telenovela that the characters riffed off of in a few scenes. As telenovelas tend to go, there was a love triangle, and in one scene the two men of the triangle were about to fight for the love of the woman. Agent Stone comments: “She should kill them both. She’s not a prize to be won.” Weirdly overreactive and violent for a kid’s movie. Hollywood writers really can’t help doing woke self-insert commentary in some form, when even just the hint of inequality (inequity?) pops up. You can’t unsee the tactic once you realize it’s there. Agent Stone isn’t wrong, though: she’s not worth it. There hasn’t been a woman in history worth risking your life for, just for a shot at romance.

The trailer for the upcoming James Gunn Superman played. I find his brand of humor, though fine in small doses, ultimately annoying, but he does action and perspective shots very well.