Atrocious.

The only word necessary to describe how I felt about the original Sonic design. Luckily Paramount, the studio behind Sonic The Hedgehog, redesigned the model to one worthy of praise. Yet, on the opposite side of the coin, MPC Vancouver has shut down after finishing their redesign.

Sonic The Hedgehog was released on February 14, and it received mediocre reviews by Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes, and IMDb. Their opinions do not make mine waver however, I think the movie was great.

No. It was average, maybe a bit above average.

The general plot synopsis goes like this: Sonic—the hedgehog—is on Earth in Green Hills, California. If you can’t guess, the movie has a lot of fanservice or small details for fans. Sonic then spends a peaceful and lonely life until one day he realizes that he is alone and has no friends. 

He then gets as depressed as a hedgehog can get which leads him to run around a baseball diamond with extreme speeds causing an EMP-like energy to emanate from his body. This takes out power from a large chunk of the west coast.

The government gets involved and causes Dr. Robotnik to show up and hunt Sonic. He then hides in Donut Lord’s—also known as Tom Wachowski—shed where, as seen in the initial trailer, Sonic gets shot by a tranquilizer.

Sonic was trying to escape earth to the next planet with his ring—which acts as a teleporter. He opens one in San Francisco after getting tranquilized and his rings fall through. Tom agrees to help Sonic, labeling him as an active terrorist.

This leads to humorous shenanigans on a road trip to San Francisco. One such scene can be compared to scenes similar to the infamous ‘Quicksilver scene’ from X-men: Days of Future Past, and other humorous interactions.

The movie is a family comedy, so this tone fits quite well. Most of the jokes were, at least, competently timed and written. Some jokes are much more targeted towards a younger audience, like Sonic doing a dance similar to the floss seen in Fortnite.

Some jokes are still funny even after leaving the theater. For example, Tom has to put Sonic in a bag in one scene and he has a hard time keeping his mouth shut leading to surrounding people hearing him.  Tom covers this by saying there is a child in his bag, but don’t worry, it’s not his.

Oftentimes villains are imposing, but Dr. Robotnik is also comic relief. Jim Carrey killed his role and made Robotnik my absolute favorite movie villain. Almost anytime he is on the screen you can expect to smile or laugh.

The humor of the movie lands well, and another thing that lands well is the fanservice. There are a lot of references to Sonic media—the teleporting rings reference the rings that take Sonic and friends to special or bonus levels.

A pair of shoes Sonic gets halfway through the movie reference his shoes in the games. Some of the music references, or just remixes, are Sonic music. A post-credit scene shows Tails⁠—a secondary character in the Sonic games—coming through one of the previously mentioned rings. 

The movie sets up for a sequel quite well–in fact, I would expect a theoretical Sonic cinematic universe, and I would definitely enjoy a sequel. 

As a family movie, the tone is light and the ending is really heartwarming for what it is. The next time you’re at a theater I would recommend giving Sonic The Hedgehog a chance.