SONIC: THE CHILI DOG OF MOVIES

For as much love as there is for Sonic, there exists an equal amount of critics, trolls, and haters who are willing to take Sega to task for allowing the “Blue Blur” to become a meme-status property.

It’s no secret that in the eyes of the mainstream gaming community, Sonic is no longer the “cool,” console-selling franchise it used to be, back in the early ’90s. But that hasn’t stopped Sega from attempting to bring the lovable speed freak back to relevancy with his own feature film, “Sonic The Hedgehog.”

While the property has existed in more traditional media formats before, including several animated series and comics, it came as somewhat of a shock to hear that there would be a full-on, live-action adaptation coming to theaters, especially when considering nearly every video game movie has been a massive flop. Even Sonic’s biggest competitor, Mario, famously failed so hard that his character’s movie is widely considered to be one of the worst of all time.

However, every new attempt to bring games to the big screen has been slightly better than the last. So, with “Sonic” now playing in theaters, does that trend hold true for everyone’s favorite hedgehog?

As with most things, the answer lies somewhere in the middle – but, I believe it’s safe to say that the fans will at least be satisfied. Though, to be fair, the fans almost owe their satisfaction to Paramount, considering how much extra time and effort had to be spent by the studio on reanimating the  admittedly horrifying CGI Sonic. If it hadn’t been for the massive initial fan backlash over Sonic’s original live action design, the film would have undoubtedly suffered the scorn of an angry fanbase.

Normally when such massive changes are made to a film retroactively, it’s a clear sign of an incoming flop. Thankfully for Sega, however, it has managed to avoid humility at the box office and has already made back its budget for the movie.

Don’t take that to mean Sonic is a good movie, because there are still plenty of shortcomings. Even so, it’s not a bad movie, either. For the most part, the film teeters somewhere between acceptably entertaining and expectedly mediocre. If not for the character redesign, this movie could’ve easily gone the way of “Cats” and ended up more of a joke than it already is. But, thanks to director Jeff Fowler and a surprisingly star-studded cast, there are enough quality components to keep the film interesting.

Speaking of the cast, Ben Schwartz is sufficiently charming as the voice of Sonic, bringing a certain lovability to the character and working surprisingly well off his co-star, James Marsden (Officer Tom). While Marsden is no great comedic talent, it’s nice to see him flex his acting muscles instead of his actual muscles, for once, and try something rather out of his wheelhouse.

The real show stealer is Jim Carrey, who absolutely chews the scenery every time his character, Dr. Robotnik, is on-screen. His performance is both delectably evil and cartoonish to perfection. Despite the overall middling quality of the film, Carrey never disappoints.

Unfortunately, the writing leaves something to be desired. While the concept of Sonic existing on Earth in full, live-action form was always going to require some leaps in logic in order to make any sense, there are so many plot holes, big and small, that all semblance of a coherent story may as well have been thrown out the window.

Perhaps that’s not so much of a problem, considering the breakneck pacing of this movie. Because the scenes move so quick, there’s almost never a time to stop and consider Sonic’s poorly explained backstory – to which approximately 2 minutes of screentime is devoted – or the nonsensical reactions of nearly every voiced character. This also means the jokes come at a mile a minute, and thankfully there are more hits than misses, though nothing worth more than a chuckle.

Aside from the writing, Fowler does a decent job at incorporating Sonic’s iconic super speed, having created a handful of genuinely fun, comedic special effects moments while not going overboard. However, those are just moments. At the end of the day, unless you’re a diehard Sonic fan, or you just need a passably entertaining movie to distract your kids for a bit, you can wait until it’s on Netflix if you’re interested in the film.

3/5