Movie Review: Sonic the Hedgehog 2
What We Liked
What We Didn't Like
Much like its predecessor, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 captures the feel of its video game inspiration fairly accurately. It’s a mindless and amusing piffle, designed to distract kids and then be quickly forgotten. As with the first film, it’s probably the best movie that can be made about a fast blue rodent collecting rings.
The sequel picks up not too long after the first film. Sonic (voiced by Ben Schwartz) is living happily in the small town of Green Hills with his buddies Tom (James Marsden) and Maddie (Tika Sumpter), although he secretly ventures out to nearby Portland to stop crime, inadvertently destroying a city block in the process. His idyllic life gets shaken up when the villainous Doctor Robotnik (Jim Carrey) escapes from the dreaded Mushroom Planet, bringing with him an angry red beastie named Knuckles (Idris Elba). But Sonic has his own new ally, a two-tailed fox named Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey), and the two head off to find a mystical green emerald and save the world.
One of the last pre-pandemic theatrical successes, Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) holds the dubious honor of breaking the video game movie curse, earning positive reviews and becoming a worldwide box office success. It’s not that Jeff Fowler’s adaptation was a masterpiece, or even a very good movie. But aimed at kids, it captured the speedy, smart alec appeal of the original game, and was bolstered by Carrey’s manic performance and an earnestness that kept it from feeling like just another cynical cash grab. In the two years since its release, game adaptations Mortal Kombat (2021) and Uncharted (2022) have not given much hope that Sonic’s lessons were learned by other studios.
Fowler, once again in the director’s chair, wisely adheres to an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach for the sequel. He maintains the franchise’s brisk pace and gentle humor, ladling in just a dash of a lesson for Sonic to learn about needing pals and waiting for the right moment to play the hero. For gamer geeks, he expands the mythology enough to include popular characters Tails and Knuckles, and constructs it all around a typical video game guest formula; the film’s island-set climactic dash could easily have been pulled right from any number of Sonic games.
The highlight continues to be Carrey. His hit-to-miss ratio with quips is probably lower than in the predecessor, but he tosses out so many zingers and has such a ball contorting his face that he’s fun to watch even when he’s not particularly funny; he’s also saddled with a giant mustache that might be a character in and of itself. Schwartz continues to find the right balance of sweetness and sass as Sonic, although the plot dispatches Tom to Hawaii for half the film, a shame since one of the highlights of the previous film came from watching Marsden interact with his spiky blue co-star. Elba’s fun as a deadly serious foil with no grasp of humor, and what Tails lacks in personality, he makes up for in cuteness.
Ben Schwartz in “Sonic the Hedgehog 2.” Photograph: Paramount/Allstar.
The film is fast, barely pausing to take a breath as it crosses oceans and continents on Sonic’s quest. There are multiple chases, a barroom dance off, a biplane fight and a climactic battle with a giant robot, all delivered with slick, colorful effects. Kids will love it. Parents, especially those who have long outgrown SEGA, may find the hyperactivity exhausting and wonder why this kids’ movie clocks in at over two hours. They’ll especially find themselves checking their watches during the film’s laborious Hawaii subplot, which brings back the first film’s shrill sister-in-law character (Natasha Rothwell) and grinds the film to a halt with ridiculous wedding-gone-awry hijinks.
In the end, though, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 wasn’t made for these parents. As a game adaptation and kids’ adventure, the sequel does what it says on the box. The mid-credits sequence hints at a third entry, which should likely get kids excited and continue the franchise until audiences decide to hit pause. It might not be art, but it’s an endurable distraction. That’s not usually high praise in a movie review, but in the world of video game adaptations, it’s probably as close to an Oscar as they’re going to get.
