This film is something that just leaves me speechless. Not because I loved the film so much that I don’t know what to say, but I just don’t know how to describe my feelings towards it. I can’t say I loved it, but I can’t say I hated it either. The film somehow nails it down the middle, even in the midst of having to change its nightmarish original design for the title character. If you haven’t already seen the original design, you are not living under a box, but you’re rather living in a world of sunshine and rainbows. Once you’ve seen the original design, you’ve exposed yourself to an incredibly scary monster. The original design for Sonic was a  grotesque monster with weirdly animated eyes, human baby teeth, tall and frighteningly muscular legs, and a human-like figure that is almost creepier than the human cats from the movie Cats. So if you haven’t seen the original design, just pretend like it never happened, enjoy the movie, and live your life to the fullest because you can wake up every morning knowing you haven’t witnessed the devil on earth. Sorry about the complaint about the creepy original design, back to the review.

So Sonic the Hedgehog follows an incredibly fast alien who claims to be a hedgehog named Sonic (Ben Schwartz). He has the power to run at an extremely fast speed (765 miles per hour, as the movie says). He lived on a planet with an owl who acted as his guardian, but one day he is forced to go to Earth. For one decade, he lives in the small town of Green Hills, where he watches over the donut-loving chief of police named Tom Wachowski (James Marsden). One day, Sonic causes an energy surge that wipes out all the power in the west. The U.S. military brings in an insane but brilliant scientist named Dr. Ivo Robotnik (played hilariously by Jim Carrey) to figure out this mass blackout. He manages to trace it to Sonic, forcing the hedgehog to escape. While he tries to escape, he is caught by Wachowski and his rings (which can teleport him anywhere he wants), falls into a single ring, and gets transported to San Francisco. Sonic enlists the help of Wachowski to help him get the rings back and to escape the deadly clutches of Dr. Robotnik. 

Now, I find that this film does a great job making you empathize with this character. He no longer looks like the demon that visits me every night, which makes it even easier to like him. He may be a bit of a wise guy, but you see why you want to follow this character. He is given a surprisingly emotional story that serves as the perfect backbone for the movie. This version of the character is both faithful to the original and upgraded by making you feel for him. 

One other major high of the movie is Jim Carrey. He’s so awesome in this movie that I have to dedicate a whole paragraph to his performance. He brings the perfect amount of over-the-top energy to the role and it just represents his perfect return to form. He’s hysterical, fast-talking, and edgy at some points, and he brings the same amount of energy to this role as he has for some of his most classic roles. It’s hard not to get feelings of nostalgia watching him even if you didn’t ever live in the ’90s. He shows that no one else could’ve played him better.

Now I can’t give this movie too much praise. In fact, it’s probably the worst movie I’ve ever reviewed on this site even though the bar has been set kind of high. I mean, it’s not The Godfather, it’s not Parasite, but it’s not The Emoji Movie or Show Dogs (a movie I hate with all my soul and will never stop bashing). The plot is kind of basic and in some ways, it’s a bit contrived. Events wouldn’t have really happened if it weren’t so incredibly forced. It’s kind of like the movie that can only explain certain plot points with “So that the movie can happen.” I mean, what did you expect? It’s a film about a hedgehog who has superspeed and makes references to The Fast and Furious and does the floss dance too (this might be a spoiler, but I just hated the scene in the movie). You shouldn’t take it seriously because it was never meant to be taken seriously in the first place. It has a basic plot, it’s sometimes a bit too forced, it’s obviously flawed, but it is surprisingly fun in some parts. It’s just a film that delivers on how it was sold to the public; a fun family film.