Sonic the Hedgehog movie assessment: You possibly can gradual your roll, Sega followers

<img src = "https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/sonic-the-hedgehog-STH-FF-018_rgb-800×336.jpg" alt = "High-speed blur effect? ​​Check, gold ring, diamonds, oversized eyes, diamonds (thank goodness), but what about the rest of the first live action? Sonic the Hedgehog Movie? "/>
Enlarge /. High speed blur effect? Check. Golden ring? Check. Oversized eyes? Check (thank god). But what about the rest of the first live action film Sonic the Hedgehog?

At least seven times during my screening of Sonic the Hedgehog, the first live action film based on the classic Sega gaming franchise, I blurted out to myself: "I can't believe they almost kept the old design . "

The best thing I can say about this week's new film is that Sega and Paramount have avoided a monumental catastrophe. The camera of this film is in love with Sonic, the only CGI star. It keeps staring at him, lingers on his cartoon-filled eyes and enables the animation team to sell his emotional state. Not that Sonic is a subtle character. Actor Ben Schwarz (Parks & Recreation, the voice of Star Wars & # 39; BB-8) plays the title role like a caffeinated 12 year old and it fits. But the film's heartwarming moments always have deep looks in Sonic's eyes. It could have been very, very different.

Now viewers can rest assured that this usable, acceptable, not astonishing, but not terrible family movie wasn't armored by toothy, supple Sonic with narrowed eyes. With that crucial detail out of the way, the rest of the attached film isn't as sensational or headline-worthy. The first live-action film in the series is neither a jerk for the sonic media pantheon, nor an indispensable adaptation of video games. We ended up somewhere over The Angry Birds Movie, somewhere under Pokemon: Detective Pikachu.

A madman trapped in his own universe, not Sega's

• Jim Carrey has not had so much fun starring in a while. (I'm not going to stop you from counting 2014 Dumb and Dumber To, but come on, let's be real.

• What does a Sonic fur strand taste like? Apparently sharp.

  Sega / Paramount

• Robotnik and Tom meet before Robotnik finally puts on his well-known outfit from the game series.

  Sega / Paramount

• Just before meeting Sonic, Tom and his wife (played by Tika Sumpter) start making big plans.

  Sega / Paramount

• "300? Is that nonsense with metric systems?"

  Sega / Paramount

• "Hey, let's be fooled like this fast food company where two guys crack their cars in their commercials. What's that called? Hmm, it's on my tongue …"

  Sega / Paramount

• I would have preferred a Sonic Fighters reference at that moment. Oh.

  Sega / Paramount

• Also, he never glides around gold rings in games, although that would be a cute option.

  Sega / Paramount

• In the best case, the VFX team pulls gags like at this moment when the furball has just dried up.

  Sega / Paramount

• The general lack of credible environmental occlusion, however, is felt throughout the film.

  Sega / Paramount

• I can't even imagine this scene with the original character design.

  Sega / Paramount

I come to an overall positive verdict, largely thanks to Jim Carrey's comedic performance as serial villain Dr. Robotnik. His screenplay has no obvious connections to series history (which, to be fair, is mostly two-dimensional cheese found in comic and comic book adaptations). Instead, the screenwriting and directing crew seems to have given Carrey the full force to play the "egocentric, brilliant megalomaniac" archetype he thought was right. Based on how far his character deviates from the scene and how well the speeches match Carrey's body and timing, I have the impression that the actor admired what we see on the screen. But even if I'm wrong, his rhythms and intensity fall into an incredible groove, as if he were teaching a master class about B-movie villains from the 60s.

For this purpose, neither Carrey nor anyone here is loyal to a "sonic-worthy" act or references. When Carrey is weird, he behaves like a madman trapped in his own universe, not like Segas. And when Sonic falls around or fights robots, the results rarely look like the classic games of the blue hedgehog. He may have two "Spin Dash" moves during the 90 minutes of the film and rarely jumps on bad guys to destroy them. Not that it is so important for the film, but I point out to the viewers who might be dismayed that Robotnik doesn't stick to serial traditions and catch forest animals in its robots.

Oddly enough, the filmmakers can't avoid another superhero archetype: the flash. Everything Sonic does in this film revolves around his ability to run fast, which means that he controls time and space – that he can see the world around him in slow motion or can cover insane distances almost instantly. Most of Sonic's visual gags in the film revolve around this concept, and a stack of licensed DC Comics books in one scene reads less like a tribute than an open admission to a dry creative well.

Sure, he can slow down time, mess with people nearby while time freezes, and then shout "time in"! see the sparks fly. It's cute. I giggled. But it is not a very inventive variant of the old bullet time concept. Why not get Sonic to master the game series challenge, find loops, ramps, and pulse generators to increase his speed? Why shouldn't he do a spin dash to tear down walls? I can imagine a lot of silly, family-friendly gags that revolve around these limitations and feel more authentic to the game series.

Someone please get a card from Sonic

Enlarge /. The film's robot designs are just right for non-Sonic CGI, and they're not something to shout about.

Sega / Paramount

Instead, we get about four ridiculous references to the game series (including at least one fantastic meme) that are tied to an action saddled with a couple of cockamamy leaps in logic. To begin with, the film begins with a very strange story from Sonic Origin: it was raised on a magical island … by a mysterious speaking owl called Littlefoot. (No, you won't find this owl in any other Sonic medium available.) This short hedgehog-and-owl sequence honestly looks torn out of the tragic Sonic 2006 video game, and the only nice thing I have to say about it is that it is short.

From there, Sonic is instructed to jump from one universe to the next with his magical ring bag when someone sees him at his superfast speed. (Why does he always have to hide instead of using his powers forever? We don't get a good answer.) This changes when he lands on Earth – more precisely in a small town in Montana – and creepily pursues a policeman named Tom ( played by James Marsden of Westworld).

Sonic's loneliness prevails and he breaks out of hiding to ask Tom for help. What does Sonic need? A trip to the other side of the USA, where his ring pouch was accidentally wound up. When asked why he doesn't run there himself, Sonic complains that he doesn't have a card. I mean, the film could have picked up on that logic by causing Sonic a leg cramp, vitamin deficiency, or something. But it's not a movie.

In the film, Tom and Sonic, who become friends during this road trip, compete against Robotnik, a US-sponsored researcher who appears to be hired to resolve CIA-class emergencies. The best quality of the film is to focus on these three stars, as opposed to a bloated and unwieldy cast of family comedies. Marsden is particularly agile when it comes to crossing the line between Sonic's discipline and his buddy – and delivering just enough excitement before he lets Sonic go on with his craziest antics. Unfortunately, the supporting cast mostly fails because of its role as a comic relief, with the exception of Carrey's right hand, a bumblebee agent played by Lee Majdoub (The 100).

But Marsden and Black aren't nearly as cute, weird, and grown up as we got from Pokemon: Detective Pikachu, a film that also circles Sonic's CGI department. PDP has overcrowded its scenes with dozens of flawlessly rendered animal monster things, while Sonic, the only CGI star in this film, contains some really otherworldly, embarrassing-looking representations of fur and light reflections. More than a few times, I noticed strange reflections in Sonic's pearly nose, asking me if this film could have used a rendering pass. And the VFX people didn't make up for it with their designs of Robotnik's flying drone trailers. They are all generic laser shooting robots from this half of the equation. (To be fair, their priorities are probably somewhere else, and I'm not blaming them.)

I'm glad Sonic had enough of his parts to get me through an entertaining contemplation. But the only thing that would make me choose this film over other family-friendly options is frankly Jim Carrey's appearance. Nothing else in Sonic the Hedgehog feels particularly exciting, even within its specific niche of a clear "PG, not PG-13" rating.