The setup
Sonic the Hedgehog is a super fast alien hedgehog who has been hiding on Earth. After accidentally revealing himself, he teams up with a small town sheriff to escape the government and the eccentric Dr. Robotnik, who wants to capture Sonic and use his powers for himself.
Sonic the Hedgehog is a perfectly decent film, but I think Jim Carrey is the main reason I enjoyed it.
Sonic himself is probably my biggest problem. I grew up with Sonic being this cool, laid back character, whereas here he's basically an annoying hyperactive kid. I can see why kids would love him, but I found him a bit irritating.
The film also feels like it was aimed at kids first, with a lot of the jokes being pretty safe and predictable. There are some funny moments, but quite a few of them completely miss the mark.
Then Jim Carrey turns up as Robotnik and suddenly the film gets about ten times more entertaining. He completely takes over every scene he's in, and honestly, I could have watched an entire film of just him being ridiculous.
The action is decent too, especially the bits where Sonic moves so fast that everyone else basically stops moving. The effects are good, and thankfully they fixed that horrible original Sonic design before the film came out.
There's loads of Sonic stuff thrown in for fans as well, although I actually think they could have leaned into the nostalgia a lot more. Having grown up with the games and comics, I wanted more of that rather than just Sonic being dropped into a fairly standard road trip movie.
It's not a bad film at all. It's just not quite the Sonic movie I wanted.
NCN Score
Our final score for Sonic The Hedgehog.
