Movie Thoughts: Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Sonic 1 was the last mainstream movie I saw before the pandemic. Now here we are seeing the sequel as the pandemic (hopefully) winds down and is replaced in the headlines by mini-World War 3.

Product. Another product. That’s what this is. It doesn’t pretend to be anything else. That’s why it works. Being a pure cinematic Product is not always a bad thing. If the product does what it’s advertised to do, it’s good. Kids will love this. Fun, fun, fun. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, while still honoring its source material. There are easter eggs everywhere. Viral hits make up the soundtrack. Sonic stops a bank heist to RunDMC’s Tiktok trend Tricky, Robotnik fires up a robot to Pantera’s Walk, Sonic and Tails have a dance off to Uptown Funk. There are quips out the ass, and a lot of them are actually pretty funny. This was written by grown children for actual children. Emotions switch on/off from scene to scene as needed, the plot is generally coherent (quest for a diamond, villain gets it, villain defeated). The ride functions as it should, and when it’s over you forget about it.

Carey doesn’t play Dr. Robotnik, he plays Jim Carrey in a Sonic movie meta commenting on everything like a diagetic MST3K. Occasionally he overdoes it. Idris Elba has a ball with his role as only he can. Ben Schwartz IS Sonic now, the bastard, and Tails’ original video game voice Colleen O’Shaughnessy is here. James Marsden and Tika Sumpter start off as the grounding parental unit but by the second act they’re the definition of tacked on. Once…