If you would have told me at the beginning of 2020 that Sonic the Hedgehog would kick off a series of what are the best video game movies of all time, I would have never believed you but, then again, if you told me what half of 2020 would bring, I wouldn’t have believed that either.
So, here we are, with Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Sonic is trying to find his place in the world as a hero when his world is flipped, turned upside down by the return of Robotnik and the introduction of an antagonist named Knuckles who has similar powers as his. Now, Sonic must team up with another newcomer, a fox named Tails, to find the Chaos Emeralds before Doctor Robotnik uses them for his own nefarious purposes.
I wouldn’t say that this is a “turn your brain off” kind of movie, but it does possess a refreshing innocence about it that you just can’t help but love. I enjoyed the brotherly relationship between Sonic and Tails so much and bought just about every moment of it. More than that, I just enjoyed them as characters. Sonic’s flossing and the other somewhat annoying pop culture referencing moments were toned down quite a bit and we got to see a lot more of his character which I like. Not to say that he didn’t make pop culture references, they just didn’t feel as shoehorned in as they did last time.
The true star of this movie, however, is Idris Elba as Knuckles who is not only terrifying when he wants to be, but also uproariously funny when he doesn’t mean to me. The little red fireball stole every scene he was in and, to be honest, I think that the movie was better off because of it.
Of course, Jim Carrey is always gold.
The movie did make the questionable choice of stuffing an out of place romantic comedy right into the middle of it which was not only given way too much screen time, but also seemed to have come from a completely different movie that got lost and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 took pity on and gave a good home.
Still, this movie is bright, its happy, it gleefully embraces its goofy video game roots, and turns in a sequel that, dare I say… is actually superior to the first movie.
Who would have ever thought? We have good video game movies at last!
Jason Gaston 