When a bad idea is successful, are we supposed to applaud or cringe? You don’t really want to encourage this behavior, do you? Video game characters aren’t movie characters; they shouldn’t be movie characters. And anybody who’s seen a Lara Croft film can confirm this. But bad ideas payoff from time-to-time, and Sonic the Hedgehog, the movie, thus joins the ranks of the Pet Rock, the Fidget Spinner, and the purchase of Alaska as longshots with greater returns than anyone might have guessed.
None of the initial signs were good; the spiky space avatar had to be redesigned from scratch – and that was after the first trailer appeared. The first Sonic looked too scruffy and raccoon-like. Let me put this another way: after Sonic the Hedgehog had been shot, printed, and edited, the film had to -quite literally- go back to the drawing board. If you’ve got a good explanation of how they turned trash panda into treasure panda, I’m all ears.
Sonic (voice of Ben Schwarz) is a bright blue, hominid-ish alien with Flash-like speed. In fact, Sonic enjoys speedreading “Flash” comic books in his spare time, which is a nice touch. Also worth note is that Sonic was considered a super even on his islandic Angry Birds-like home planet. When the power-hungry locals sought to capture l’il Sonic, his guardian sent [read: banished] the little guy to Montana, where all hope goes to die.
From afar, Sonic kinda pulls a Hunchback of Notre Dame routine, becoming familiar with all the denizens with a bare minimum of direct interaction. He taunts the local kook screaming: “I know you exist, blue demon!” with “No, I don’t.” His favorite human is Tom Wachowski (James Marsden), the local policeman he’s dubbed, “Donut Lord” for Tom’s obsession with speechifyin’ to breakfast treats. What I loved instantly about Sonic, however, was how relatable he was – which, considering his cartoonish appearance and propensity to travel 300 MPH, is strange. Sonic is lonely, not having anybody to communicate with directly. And Sonic is going a little stir crazy from living in his own head all the time.
During a game of baseball, in which Sonic -because of his incredible speed- plays all the positions, the batter, and the third base coach, the little guy demonstrates the brink of madness which evolves into a wave 
of frustration. The frustration turns into an electrical storm which shorts out the entire northwest, drawing the attention of the evil Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey).
In between evil dancing and belittling inferiors, Jim Carrey seems to be having the time of his life in this role. I haven’t enjoyed him so much since he played Andy Kaufman.
So what do we make of the Blue Man Group adopting a fursona? The cynic says Sonic the Hedgehog is nothing more than another looting, a naked attempt to milk more money out of a cash cow, no different than anything Disney has done in the past five years. The cynic isn’t wrong. Sonic the Hedgehog is a video game character brought to the big screen. Sonic is puerile, occasionally aims for the LCD, and concludes with a silly boss room battle as if the film is nothing more than a pre-played game of sorts. However, this is a film that can be enjoyed by different audiences and at the root of Sonic is a quest for friendship; that’s a great message for the type of person more prone to playing video games … or anybody for that matter.
In lieu of poem or song for today’s entry, I have complied a list of some alternate universe versions:
- Sonic the Sedgehog – the cobalt flash is more razorback than rodent in this version; he’s a little stronger, but can be defeated by huffing, puffing, and blowing his house down.
- Sonic the Balrog – scourge of the Middle Earth, this Sonic insists upon collecting all the rings and we’ll just see who binds whom, huh?
- Sonic the Pedagogue – not unlike Dead Poets Society, Sonic is an erudite grade school teacher instructing students on the finer points of velocity and theoretical physics.
- Sonic the Demagogue – In this version, Sonic runs for public office by appealing to folks who have a misplaced hatred of doctors, robots, and people who run out of quarters.
- Sonic the Hedge Fund – this one isn’t about an alien creature at all, but instead a follow up to The Big Short centering around the IPO for Sonic Drive-Ins at the NYSE.
- Sonic the Hedge Blog – the blue furry alien takes time away from scurrying to compose a blog in which he reviews a ton of movies, but nobody reads it.
- Ionic the Hedgehog – I got nothin’ here; just thought it might be a nice way to end the column.
Rated PG, 99 Minutes
Director: Jeff Fowler
Writer: Patrick Casey & Josh Miller
Genre: Your “heroes” come to “life”
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Good-hearted children
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Curmudgeons
