Our favorite speedy blue hedgehog is back in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the science fiction action-adventure comedy based on Sega’s video game franchise. The original Sonic the Hedgehog came out in 2020 and served as an enjoyable but familiar road trip movie made to establish the characters and set up a sequel with Tails and the return of Jim Carrey as the villainous Doctor Eggman. Now that this sequel has finally rolled around, it has fortunately delivered on everything the original promised, with an entertaining ride that focuses more on its fascinating world for a sequel even better than the first.
If there’s anything that the video game genre has taught us, adapting a game into a movie can lead to disastrous results. So while we wash the taste of films like Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City out of our mouths, it is essential to remember that video game movies can sometimes be a hell of a lot of fun. That’s what you can expect to get with Sonic the Hedgehog 2: a delightful, funny video game movie designed to please fans of the games with its loving portrayals of the classic Sega characters.
The movie features an appropriately timed tribute to Batman, with Sonic (Ben Schwartz) doing a poor job of taking down criminals under the moniker of Blue Justice. The film then features Tom (James Marsden) and Maddie (Tika Sumpter) going to a wedding, leaving Sonic behind for a solid Risky Business reenactment. However, when Doctor Eggman returns, he brings Knuckles (Idris Elba), a red echidna warrior who quickly proves himself to be stronger than Sonic. The opening act does an excellent job setting up Sonic’s new adversary and readying us for what is to come.
The Sonic subplot and the wedding subplot converge to unexpected results in the second act. The movie features Maddie’s older sister Rachel (Natasha Rothwell) getting married to Randall (Shemar Moore). Once the subplots converge, the film spends a surprising amount of time on the wedding subplot with the humans. In a movie dedicated to a story surrounding superpowered anthropomorphic creatures, spending a lot of time with a human subplot could have been a giant swing and a miss. However, Rothwell’s brilliant comedic performance makes the diversion from the story as entertaining as possible.
What the movie lacks in genuine character moments, it makes up for in unbridled fun and endless movie references. While the nods to Raiders of the Lost Ark and Avengers: Infinity War can be overbearing at times, the film knows how to avoid taking itself seriously and provide a solid video game experience. The cast is phenomenal, with Schwartz providing all of Sonic’s cockiness and charisma and voice actress Colleen O’Shaughnessy delightfully reprising her role as Tails from the games. In addition, Elba is superb as Knuckles, a strong warrior with little knowledge of human customs, which leads to some of the film’s funnier moments.
Another shining light in this film is Carrey’s unhinged performance as Doctor Eggman. With characters like this and The Riddler in Batman Forever, it’s a mystery as to how Carrey never played more over-the-top villains. His iconic style is hammy and lovingly ridiculous. This movie does an excellent job of expanding his character and making him even more powerful than in the previous film. Scenes between the characters of Tom and Maddie are some of the less interesting parts of this series, but they also have fun moments, so they do add something.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a phenomenal way to expand upon the world we briefly saw in the first film. There are some formulaic tropes throughout the film, such as an ending battle with a sky beam, but overall, this is a superior sequel with more substantial stakes than the first. In addition, the production design is a significant improvement over the first, and ultimately, this is a funny, well-made sequel with a phenomenal finale and a mid-credits scene that will get fans racing to see the next one.
SCORE: 7.5/10
As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 7 equates to “Good.” A successful piece of entertainment that is worth checking out, but it may not appeal to everyone.
