FROM UNCANNY VALLEY TO IRRESTIBLY ADORABLE
On April 30, 2019, Paramount released the first trailer to Sonic the Hedgehog which showed how the titular character would look like. To put things lightly audiences and fans were not thrilled with the reveal. Sonic, one of the most iconic and recognized video game characters, was designed to be more “realistic” and as such he was given small beady eyes, a human-like body, and human teeth. Needless to say, this drastic design passed the uncanny valley for most people, and many young children would have probably considered this Sonic to be scary rather than endearing. The trailer sparked harsh online criticism and memes, and what’s worse is that Detective Pikachu made its way to cinemas just a few days after Sonic’s trailer. Detective Pikachu proved to be a commercial and critical success, and as it featured CGI Pokémon interacting with real-life actors, it was inevitably compared with Sonic the Hedgehog. The CGI Pikachu maintained its adorable design, and audiences stated that that’s how Sonic should have been reimagined for the big screen. Fowler would take these sentiments to heart and took the decision to delay the film to redesign Sonic. Thankfully, the new design paid homage to the hedgehog’s look from the early 90s, and the cartoony aesthetic appealed to older fans’ nostalgia and children’s love for cutesy characters. Furthermore, the sappy scenes where Sonic is contemplating his loneliness worked a lot better with his newer kid-friendly face, I honestly cringe at imagining how some of these scenes would have looked with the old design. Nevertheless, part of me wishes that the DVD/Blue-ray release of the film features a director’s cut with all the finished scenes featuring the old Sonic because, let’s be honest, the original design would have made the film funny in a so-bad-it's good kind of way, and many memes would have probably been born from this original cut.
AN OVERDONE PLOT THAT WORKS (SPOILERS AHEAD)
The film’s premise is simple; Sonic (voiced by Ben Schwartz) is an anthropomorphic hedgehog from another dimension who is born with super speed. He is raised by an Owl called Longclaw, who warns Sonic that his extraordinary powers would make him a target from evil people. Shortly, a group of hunter hedgehogs tries to capture the young Sonic, who is given a bag of magical rings by Longclaw which can be used to transport him to different worlds. She uses one of the rings to transport him to our world and warns him to never get caught. Sonic is then transported to a small town in Montana called Green Hills (a reference to Green Hill Zone, the first level of the first Sonic game). Sonic grows up living in seclusion inside a cave but adopts some coping mechanisms to alleviate his loneliness, such as playing baseball in an empty field (his super-speed enables him to play all the positions). He also spies on a young married couple and pretends to be part of the family, for example during the couple’s weekly movie night he sits at their window and watches the film with them. The lovebirds consist of Tom Wachowski (James Marsden) the town sheriff and Maddie Wachowski (Tika Sumpter) a veterinarian. Eventually, the couple starts preparing a move to San Francisco after Tom accepts a new job at the San Francisco Police Department, leaving Sonic distraught that he will become even more secluded. This causes him to have somewhat of a mental breakdown, and he starts to run at extreme speeds around the baseball field resulting in a power surge that cuts all the electricity in town. This triggers the interest of the government, and it seeks the services of an eccentric scientist Dr. Robotnik (who is played brilliantly by Jim Carrey) to find the cause of this incident. Sonic then takes refuge at the Wachowski household, as he begrudgingly attempts to use one of his rings to escape to the Mushroom Planet (a subtle dig at Nintendo’s Mario franchise). However, Tom discovers Sonic and shoots a tranquilizer at him, this causes him to drop one of his rings which opens a portal to San Francisco and the bag of rings subsequently falls through the portal and lands on top of the Transamerica Building. From here the plot turns into a mixture of ET and other buddy cop films, as Tom helps Sonic escape from the clutches of Robotnik by taking a road trip to retrieve the rings. All actors give an outstanding performance, especially Carrey who gives his usual over the top comedic acts.
HUMOR IS HIT AND MISS, BUT KIDS WILL LOVE IT
As this is a kid's film, a lot of the comedic parts that the film offers are a bit childish. Sonic’s speed is played for laughs, as many scenes revolve around him using his power to do multiple things at once. The bar fight scene is my personal favorite moment where Sonic exploits his power to mess with all parties involved in the fight resulting in good old slapstick humor which works for this kind of film. Like Pikachu, in Detective Pikachu, Sonic is a wisecracking jokester, but thankfully both characters ended up being charming and endearing rather than annoying. While the jokes might not land for all the grown-up moviegoers, the children will probably like it as a lot of the kids in my theater were laughing all throughout the film and some were even clapping after some of the jokes. It should also be noted that Sonic fans and those who are well versed in internet meme culture will probably appreciate the reference to “Sanic” at the beginning of the film.
A SEQUEL IN THE WORKS (SPOILERS AHEAD AGAIN)
In the after-credits scene, we see Tails, Sonic’s sidekick, coming through a portal into our world in search of Sonic. This obviously indicates that there is a sequel that will involve other characters in the franchise and possibly even a secondary setting within Sonic’s world. Even though it might have been premature to tease a sequel, the fact that film has already surpassed Detective Pikachu in terms of US opening weekend earnings indicates that it is already slated to be a commercial success.
