{"id":46021,"date":"2020-02-17T09:40:21","date_gmt":"2020-02-17T14:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=46021"},"modified":"2020-02-17T09:41:34","modified_gmt":"2020-02-17T14:41:34","slug":"sonic-the-hedgehog-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2020\/02\/sonic-the-hedgehog-movie-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Sonic the Hedgehog Movie review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Bob Garver<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u201cI\nliked him better when he was worse.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            That\nwas my reaction to the second trailer for \u201cSonic the Hedgehog\u201d last November.\nThe film had been pulled from a November release after horrible reactions to\nits first trailer the previous April. There was no shortage of complaints about\nthe first trailer, but most centered around the design of the title character,\nand the uncanny valley effect attributed to his \u201crealistic\u201d eyes, teeth, and\nlimbs. The film was pulled so the character could be given a complete redesign.\nThe version I saw in the trailer last November, as well as in the feature this\npast weekend, makes Sonic\u2019s features more exaggerated and cartoon-like, which\nis what people want in a cartoon. It\u2019s a good decision that makes the film\u2019s\nappearance much more palatable. And to me, it completely ruins the appeal of\nthe film. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

            That\nfirst trailer gave me some of the heartiest laughs I had in all of 2019,\ncinematic or otherwise. To be clear, those laughs had absolutely nothing to do\nwith the trailer\u2019s jokes or anything that was supposed to be funny. No, I was\ntaking joy in the monumental badness of the film, including the character\ndesign, yes, but also Jim Carrey coming off as miserable for having to give a\nthrowback performance, the inappropriate choice of \u201cGangsta\u2019s Paradise\u201d as a\ntheme song, and of course the utter lameness of every single gag. Correcting\nthe design and removing the song are undeniably relative improvements, but it\nstill leaves the film with an unfunny script and a lousy Carrey performance.\nThis is a bad movie that couldn\u2019t even retain its special flavor of bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Sonic\nthe Hedgehog is best known as the speedy hero of a video game that I could\nnever play because I could never figure out how to get the character to curl up\ninto a ball and roll. The film sees Sonic (voiced by Ben Schwartz, the sole\nanimated character in an otherwise live-action movie) exiled from his home\nplanet to Earth, which he likes, even though he has to live in secret. If he\u2019s\ncaught, he can only escape by fleeing to a mushroom planet that he hates\n(perhaps a dig at the rival \u201cSuper Mario\u201d franchise?). One night while\ncontemplating his loneliness, he causes a disaster that attracts the attention\nof the U.S. government, who employ the evil Dr. Robotnik (Carrey) to track him\ndown. Sonic is about to use his magic rings to escape to the mushroom planet,\nbut local police officer Tom (James Marsden) causes him to unwittingly\ntransport the rings to San Francisco. Tom and Sonic have to travel from\nWashington to San Francisco to retrieve the rings, all while evading Robotnik,\nwho\u2019s evil in a pretty non-specific way. Seriously, I have no idea if his goal\nis to kill or capture Sonic, or what he\u2019d do with him if he captured him. We\njust know he\u2019s the bad guy because he\u2019s doing leftover Riddler schtick from\n1995. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            This\nmovie is such a bland drag. The road trip aspect is completely forced as the\nmovie has to keep coming up with reasons why Sonic can\u2019t just run to San\nFrancisco, from tranquilizers to injuries to not knowing the way (just look at\na map as quickly as you do everything else!). The action is rarely engaging\nbecause Sonic is naturally so much more powerful than Robotnik. The verbal\nhumor usually lands with a thud, save for one notable line from Robotnik about\nbeing an orphan, and the visual humor is largely ripped off from the\nQuicksilver sequences from the \u201cX-Men\u201d movies. And yet, the animation is pretty\ngood, Schwartz gives life to the character, and there\u2019s an adorable sequence\nwith a turtle that I rather liked. I can\u2019t give \u201cSonic the Hedgehog\u201d the\ntrashing I was prepared to give it last April, just an unmemorable, unenjoyable,\nunsatisfying trashing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grade: C-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSonic the Hedgehog\u201d is rated PG\nfor action, some violence, rude humor and brief mild language. Its running time\nis 99 minutes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bob Garver             \u201cI liked him better when he was worse.\u201d             That was my reaction to the second trailer for \u201cSonic the Hedgehog\u201d last November. The film had… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":46022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46021"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}