Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Review: They Know the Way
By ZD
Image: Paramount Pictures
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a movie based on the videogame franchise starring Jim Carey James Marsden, Tika Sumpter, and the extremely talented voice cast of Ben Schwartz (Sonic), Colleen O'Shaughnessey (Tails), and Idris Elba (Knuckles). One of the things this movie does to be a better videogame film than most is that it abandons trying to carbon copy any source materials from the game franchise which typically leads to bad adaptations of already existing story lines like most videogame movies do. By dodging that bullet, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 ends up being an enjoyable family film that at some points is a lot more clever than it probably deserves to be. When the first film came out in 2020 I didn't expect to much from it, especially after the controversy around Sonic's eerily humanoid model that was originally unleashed onto the public in early photos, but I was pleasantly surprised with the end result after they tweaked his design to look more like the actual character he was based on and was very much looking forward to this sequel movie, so I had more expectations this time around so let's see how it fared versus the first movie.
Sonic's Original Film Design Revealed in 2019 (Image: Paramount Pictures)
This review will contain light spoilers, so if you plan on wanting to see the film entirely surprised, I'd highly suggest seeing the film first before reading this review, but if knowing a little about the film ahead of time doesn't bother you than feel free to press on! I just like to be fair with my spoiler warnings because I personally hate knowing anything prior to seeing a film, but I digress.
The film picks up where the previous film left off with Robotnik (Jim Carey) stranded on a mushroom infested planet. He executes a plan in which he tricks alien beings from another planet to visit the one he is on via one of rings like Sonic uses in order to escape. After he is able to successfully incapacitate the aliens; he is about to walk through the rings to escape his mushroom laden prison only to be unexpectedly stopped by a bulky red figure who makes their way through the ring towards Robotnik and of course any Sonic fan can immediately recognize it as Knuckles the Echidna. Knuckles seems to be seeking Sonic for reasons undisclosed at that moment so they make a pact to team up and help each other to find Sonic and thus commences the main plot of the film.
Immediately they go into a "Da Wey" joke when Robotnik offers to help Knuckles to find Sonic, which worried me at first, but I can say that the few Sonic related memes they pepper in throughout the movie (such as Sanic as a body decoy and the famous "Gotta go fast" line) isn't a terrible thing and is done surprisingly coherent which leads me to believe some one on staff was below the age of 50 and actually understood the memes that were used instead of some entirely out of touch Suit. One thing they do that is corny, but used sparingly in order to get a laugh out of children who are entering the phase of knowing what cuss words are is using some faux curse words laced throughout the movie such as Jim Carey's Robotnik exclaiming "piece of shit shiitake planet" with a surprisingly hard emphasis on the piece of shit part, but of course they are able to get away with it since that's the nail on the head part of the joke. A recurring theme throughout the films writing is silly, but funny. They do a great job of balancing humor to be very much for kids, with nods to adults and genuine fans throughout the movie. The comedic timing got exponentially better than the first movie which helps a lot of the jokes to be funny in the first place. That's not to say they either don't over do it nor do none of the jokes land flat; there's many segments where the humor just fails to land gracefully. In my opinion the 3 top offenders of this is Adam Pally (Wade Whipple) who's character wasn't funny at all if you were at the age old enough to understand the English language, Natasha Rothwell (Rachel) who's highlight moment that actually was funny where it's a very the over top scene with a gold cart and explosions would have been even better if she hadn't unleashed an assault of tried humor prior to that scene, though I do understand they were more than likely directed to over act to emphasize family-in-law drama so it's bad but understandable, and finally the other offender is actually Jim Carey (Robotnik) himself; now before people who enjoyed his overall performance gets all type happy in the comments, let me explain myself. I did enjoy his performance overall, but unfortunately there were a lot of moments where he would rapid fire jokes and use Zoomer humor (flossing dance) and lingo that just did not work or maybe it was done so well that I was supposed to cringe as hard as I did in some scenes. But either way I'd say that even if some of the jokes were intentionally poorly done it still did detract from some key scenes as a byproduct.
Image: Paramount Pictures
The rest of the plot is a standard adventure scenario where the heroes (particularly Sonic and Tails) must find the ultimate source of power before the baddies (Robotnik and Knuckles) can get it and wreak absolute chaos in the world which is the Chaos Emerald. Aside from the Chaos Emerald being an item from the Sonic games, as mentioned before this movie excels and is executed well because they go for a plot not holding on loosely to any storyline taken from an existing game and although that hardly makes this a videogame movie more than a cute action adventure family film, it still is based on a videogame character and that already makes it a much better videogame film than 90% of the other abysmal attempts at adaptations in the past. A lot of the scenery is gorgeously and tastefully shot free of any J.J. Abram's lense flares or motion blur effects which gives it a beautiful quality much better than a vloggers droneshot.
Understanding that there will be kids and people who don't care about videogame plots in the movie, they spare a lot of details like bothering to elaborate what planets Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are even from literally just referring to them as "my planet" whenever it is brought up. It's not a bad thing though, by sparing the details on where or what their home-planets are from or even bothering to mention Sonic's origin story (already explained in the first film) all over again helps out the pacing of the film tremendously and the film ends up being a fun ride that is over when it should be.
The addition of Tails and Knuckles in the film is a very welcome one. Tails is portrayed as a very cute and endearing character even when he makes mistakes that gets the protagonists into trouble which is nice to see because normally their character archetype from the film is a klutz who you want to tear your hair out of your head because of the mistakes they make, but in this film the quick developing friendship between Sonic and Tails is a very cute one. Knuckles' character is done really well where their very straightforward warrior mentality turns into hilarious ignorance of the regular world and about friendship once Knuckles' defects to Sonic's side in the film is done really well despite not the first time this has been done with a character before. The voice acting team Ben Schwartz (Sonic), Colleen O'Shaughnessey (Tails), and Idris Elba (Knuckles) works so well and they all did such a great job acting out their respective characters
There are several references to the first film, but it's not done poorly by any means and any time a joke or plot point hearkens back to the first film it's at least relevant to their current situation. There's a noticeable use of licensed music compared to the first film, but it's used as a comedy device mostly or to get the audience hyped about a certain scene, so in that sense it is done much better than say the first Suicide Squad film which tried to crap out as much licensed music as they possible could with in the first 10 minutes of that film. The end of the review coming up after this photo posted below will spoil the mid-credits roll scene from the end of the movie so before we get there let me say that I do recommend you see this movie! If knowing what happens doesn't bother you then press on ahead!
Image: Paramount Pictures
Overall, with as bad as videogame movies normally are, the team behind Sonic the Hedgehog 2 really did a great job with the tough task of making a videogame film, and a sequel to that film, that fans of the franchise will enjoy while making it a coherent enough film for regular film watchers and kids to enjoy and be able to follow along as well. It's a cute, endearing, and genuinely fun film with some really funny moments that delivers where Team Sonic fails to in their horrid attempts at making Sonic games post Sonic Adventure 1 and it's nice to see Sonic portrayed in a favorable light that, given it's 94% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes at time of press, many people do seem to enjoy! That reveal of Shadow during the credits mid-roll in a similar fashion to the way Tails was revealed at the end of the first movie genuinely makes me excited and hoping they will make a Sonic the Hedgehog 3!
