Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) Review by Griffin Hon

Directed by Jeff Fowler and starring Ben Schwartz as Sonic the Hedgehog, Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik and James Marsden as Tom Wachowski, Sonic the Hedgehog is a surprisingly entertaining video game movie that surrounds an insubstantial plot, but is fun nevertheless. Despite its initial backlash and controversy around Sonic’s earlier design, Sonic the Hedgehog has managed to become the second-highest-grossing film of 2020, one of the best-received video game movies, and maintain relatively high reviews from many critics.

Extraterrestrial alien Sonic deals with loneliness and boredom on Earth before causing a nationwide emergency, which bizarre scientist Dr. Robotnik is tasked to deal with. Sonic and reluctant rookie LAPD officer Tom Wachowski embark on an epic road trip across California while running from the flying technological terrors of Dr. Robotnik.
The movie is fine for what it is – the animation isn’t gorgeous, the characters aren’t very sophisticated and the plot isn’t complex but each of these aspects is sufficient to make the movie watchable. Finally, Jim Carrey’s hilarious return to his archetypal “silly character” as Dr. Robotnik is very entertaining and definitely one of the highlights of this movie.

For its premise as a video game movie, this movie surpassed almost all of the expectations of quality made by other video game movies in the past. The simple but lovable characters and their witty dialogue make the movie an amusing watch for the family.

Thanks for the great review, Griffin! – Mrs. Long