“Sonic The Hedgehog” is directed by first time director, Jeff Fowler and is based on the popular video game series of the same name. The film stars James Marsden, Tika Sumpter & Jim Carrey. Ben Schwartz provides the voice of the titular character. After Paramount Pictures acquired the rights to the series in 2017, the film was scheduled for a November 2019 but when the trailer dropped earlier that year, there was a massive backlash as fans and critics bashed the trailer over Sonic’s initial design. The film was pushed back to a February 2020 release with a new redesign which received just as much praise. The redesign has a closer resemblance to the game than the initial one that look like a humanoid creature.

Sonic is a blue hedgehog with powers of supersonic speed and is sent to Earth for protection from those wanting his power. Sonic also has magic rings with the power to teleport him between worlds. Should Earth become no longer safe he will leave to another world. After 10 years on Earth, Sonic befriends a local sheriff of small Montana town, Tom (Marsden) and his wife Maddie (Sumpter). Sonic accidently cause a major power outage which later causes a government investigation. Sonic also loses his power rings which were transported to the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco, California. The U.S. Department of Defense send a robotics expert & scientific genius, Dr. Robotnik (Carrey) and his investigation leads to an inevitable conflict with this super powered hedgehog. Sonic & Tom must travel across the West Coast to retrieve the rings before the evil doctor can & use Sonic’s power to upgrade his drone army.

Movies that based on video games have a very negative track record. Me personally, have only enjoyed 4 movies in particular based on video games, 1995’s “Mortal Kombat”, 2008’s “Max Payne”, 2010’s “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time”, 2018’s “Tomb Raider” & “Rampage”. I know that’s 5 but who’s counting?. The rest have been either straight up garbage like “Street Fighter: Legend of Chun-Li”, “Super Mario Bros.” & “House of the Dead” or so bad they’re good in a funny way like “Street Fighter” or “Doom”. Sonic is definitely of the most popular video game characters of all time but given video game movies’ track record, its only spells trouble. I’m surprised to say that this a very entertaining film and way better than expected. Sonic took what made “Detective Pikachu” a good film and ran with it. The visuals were really well put together. Jim Carrey as the villain was fantastic. He returns to his true comedic form from the 90s, the zany character with the wild body movements much like his earlier characters such as “The Mask”, “Ace Ventura” and even “The Riddler”. Carrey’s performance really holds the film together while Marsden & Sumpter hold their own.

Overall, this movie was wonderful outing for one video games greatest characters. It stays true to the character with a great live action performance from the main villain and solid visuals. Although it doesn’t follow the video game’s storyline, it still tells a solid road buddy movie story. It provides a light of hope for video games getting the silver screen treatment.