I didn't believe people when they said this was a great movie. At best I expected something passable and fun, but I concede that the popular opinion on this one is right. Despite dropping Sonic into the real world, in a lot of ways this still ends up feeling like Sonic. Despite my original reservations on casting Him Carry, he manages to feel like Robotnik. So, that said, what is this movie even about?
Well, Sonic is now on Earth after being sent away from his home. He is trying to keep himself secret so that no one will try to make use of his incredible power. However, he is discovered by the smartest man in the world, Dr. Robotnik. The plot itself revolves around Sonic trying to get his rings back to travel to a new world and escape capture. There isn't anything interesting plotwise happening, but that's okay. What carries this show is two things: action and characters.
The movie has a lot of fun animating the scenes with Sonic running around as everyone else is seemingly unmoving. Even though it's exactly what you would come to expect out of a scene like this in a comedy, the spots are really funny and when it calls for it, the action is legitimately intense. I was not expecting as much visually pleasing destruction as I got going into this movie. And it helps that Sonic himself is a lot of fun, so it's easy to enjoy seeing him playing around with the environment in a way only a speedster could do.
If you are going into this movie expecting anyone to act like a person would act in these scenarios, you are in the wrong movie. You have to kind of forget how people actually are and how anyone would reasonably act in a given scenario because if things like that bother you the movie will quickly fall apart. The movie relies entirely on you liking the characters to keep you invested, and frankly, it does that very well. Sonic is easy to care about with how funny he is, and being able to understand that he's just been alone for a while. Sonic was never a very in-depth character, but he always did have a certain cool guy charm to him.
But that isn't what makes the movie, what makes the movie is Jim Carry. As mentioned I seriously underestimated his ability to be Robotnik, and in hindsight, I shouldn't have. Robotnik is always portrayed as, to some degree, an eccentric goofball. And while the movie is nothing but real-life actors and Sonic as the CG element, everyone in this movie acts more like they are in a cartoon. Of course, Jim Carry was going to nail someone like Robotnik. Yeah, there's a certain quick wit he can have that wasn't part of the original character, but I'm not going to begrudge a movie for taking a few liberties. At the end of the day, he still feels like Robotnik.
My favorite scene in the movie isn't even relevant, it's just Robotnik dancing around weirdly to Where Evil Grows while he's waiting for an energy analysis to complete. But he's just so in love with himself and having so much fun it's hilarious to watch.
It's one of those movies that there isn't a lot to say about it, because it's not trying to be much. What it wanted to be was a movie where Sonic was in the real world and got up to some crazy shenanigans with some bizarre characters, all while trying to keep the feel of the characters intact. It was better than anyone thought it was going to be, and honestly, I think it ranks up there as one of the best live-action adaptations of any video game, possibly the best. Even if you don't know anything about Sonic, it's a lot of fun, and if you do there are enough moments that make you feel like the people behind this movie cared at least a little for the little guy. The movie is definitely worth a watch.
NOte: Images used in review were grabbed from IMDB, I was having issues grabbing shots from Amazon directly.
