Sonic The Hedgehog

The Brighton Film Club has spoken a lot about video game movies in the past. There are notoriously bad examples of the form but the general consensus is that they’re improving. I’m not sure that’s true; the turn towards po-faced, self-serious CGI-fests has given us some terrible ports which, whilst pretty, are far too cliched (think Warcraft, Assassin’s Creed, Need For Speed and Tomb Raider for some recent examples.)

Having said that, the same problem occurs when you make a tie-in that’s too kid-friendly and it’s a massive issue with the new Sonic The Hedgehog film.

What’s frustrating about this is the producers seemed to have acknowledged the problem with references in production to the horror show that was the recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films. They even gave Sonic a redesign after initial negative fan reaction to his appearance in the first trailer. This all suggested that we’d get a reinvention fit for a new generation, whilst acknowledging those who liked it in the first place (like The Lego Movie and Detective Pikachu) but, sadly, this isn’t that film.

That latter Pokémon film is an apt comparison point and a great example of the family-friendly Deadpool/Ted feel that this is clearly going for. An over-reliance on fart jokes, pseudo-youth friendly trends like flossing and a just-plain-annoying voice slow Sonic down though.

There’s no harm in resurrecting such a brilliant character and, indeed, there is a decent film in here scrabbling to get out. The fast action scenes are nailed in a X-Men Quicksilver-style and Jim Carrey finally playing another villain character is glorious; channelling his turn as The Riddler as Dr. Robotnik.

James Marsden also does as much as possible to elevate the complete absence of plot into something engaging. His everyman local cop is a character to root for and his relationship with Sonic feels earned (although Tika Sumpter as his girlfriend Maddie is not given anywhere near enough to do.)

It just skews too young, whilst it improves drastically in its third quarter once Robotnik catches up to our heroes, the plot machinations just don’t cohere into something engaging. Understandable enough when trying to shoehorn an arcade game into a live-action film but it feels like they should have added a Tails or Knuckles (or even the leftfield Mario-shared-universe option) into this film rather than praying the box office revenue is enough for an inevitable sequel.

Once that sequel arrives (mid-credits teaser? Check) here’s hoping that it improves on this first outing and gives Sonic the big-screen treatment he deserves.

Sonic even says at one point in the film: “How can something so cute be so terrible?” I’m saying nothing.

2 stars **