Sonic the Hedgehog 3 opens in theaters Friday, December 20
Whatever Paramount Pictures paid to keep Jim Carrey from supposed retirement, it was worth every penny. The rubber-limbed funnyman has been quite candid about his financial motives for playing Dr. Robotnik, the megalomaniacal mad scientist with an exaggerated paint-brush mustache, hoard of deadly electronics and a hammy grudge against fast space mammals. But just because it’s a paycheck gig for Carrey doesn’t mean he phones it in In contrast, the man behind The Mask regards his recurring role as Sonic the Hedgehog’s capering, bloviating nemesis as a license to mug like him. Not since the days of Genesis. Every time the camera finds Carrey in a Sonic movie, he’s doing something tedious – dancing with dorky aplomb, contorting his face into expressions no other human could ever imagine, Grinchian insults aside.
In Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Carrie finally finds a scene partner who can match her eccentricities. It’s… Jim Carrey. One of the hooks of this latest sequel is that it casts the actor in a dual role, allowing him to play both a returning roboticist and his distant, estranged relative. Seeing comedy legends in these movies already felt like witnessing a one-man show crammed into the margins of an expensive all-ages comedy (which is no more true than when the other half of the characters on screen are digitally generated). But there are stretches in Sonic 3 where it’s really there with Carrie, playing both sides of a crazy family reunion. And as it turns out, his two is better than one
So far, Carrey’s brash take on Eggman has been not only the highlight, but also the saving grace of these video-game adaptations. First Sonic the Hedgehog A family film was curiously popular for such a tongue-in-cheek, snarky act. Why, you had to wonder, were diehards warm to a film that ditched their beloved blue blur from the reigns of 16-bit speed and color in favor of a drab buddy comedy with James Marsden? Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was a minor improvement, mostly due to fewer scenes featuring Sega’s resident speed monster in the passenger seat of an ambling automobile, but it still leaned too heavily on hacky pop-culture references and filler subplots for wholesome human characters. . Thankfully, the third time’s the charm for the franchise, which finally hits its stride with more fleet adventures for Team Sonic.
Aside from the bug-eyed robotics, these movies don’t hold much interest in humans. The third installment further reduces the screen time of ‘Hog’s adoptive parents, token townspeople Tom (Marsden) and Maddie (Tika Sumpter), even as the cast includes Krysten Ritter, a lonely islander, and Bob’s cameo-length parts in Mad Men. With a low-destination wedding and a heart-to-heart about Tom’s career aspirations on the docket, Pat Casey, Josh Miller and John Whittington’s script manages to keep a trained focus on our colorful alien menagerie: the fickle, intelligent hedgehog Sonic (Ben Schwartz); the brilliantly juvenile flying fox tail (Colin O’Shaughnessy); and the irony-immune echidna Knuckles (Idris Elba, whose straight-faced Bruiser routine has a clear disdain for vocal and moody effects Drax the Destroyer)
The plot revolves around the identity of fan-favorite Shadow, who is a disturbing mirror image of Sonic: a brooding antihero hedgehog (it feels a little silly typing those words) who escapes years of government control, electricity in his eyes, and vengeance against humanity. in the brain Voiced, in his usual angry Jane monotone, by Keanu Reeves, the character has a tortured backstory; Returning director Jeff Fowler fleshes this out with soapy flashbacks that provide Shadow with a constructive, inspiring, even vaguely Wiccan loss. If that seems like an overly serious direction for a Sonic the Hedgehog movie (since when did that spiky-haired, finger-wagging mascot have to deliver a soliloquy about grief and revenge?), believe me a little melodrama is better trend-chasing. Flossing jokes that marked his big screen debut.
Which is to say, this third movie is inches away from the unexpected hop Closer to the original and geeky adventure plotting of a Saturday morning cartoon – a much better fit for the character, and not just because Sonic and friends have raced across that landscape before. Really small people see runAs a delightfully animated early chase down the streets and skyscrapers of Tokyo, it’s a reminder that kinetic eye candy is what defines the best Sonic games. The third part has more conceptual imagination than its predecessors: it riffs lightly Moonraker And Mission: ImpossibleKaiju movies and anime. The dialogue is a less hearty mix of jokes, life lessons and breathless declarations of conflict such as “It. ends now“
At the current rate of unlikely improvement, a Sonic series should be launched Toy Story 2-Grade Masterpiece, oh, maybe five years. For now, it’s good to know that these movies won’t completely insult kids’ intelligence or leave their parents yearning for the quickest exit. If there’s a common ground uniting the population, it’s perhaps a shared admiration for the film’s comic ringer, who is like our wide-eyed cartoon and — Internet on demand – Teeth appealing hero. Starr’s one-man buddy comedy is what you might call a case of successful sequel arithmetic: double the carry, double the fun.
