Sonic the Hedgehog Movie Review (2020)

I just watch the new Sonic movie and as a Sonic fan since my childhood I have to say that I loved it! I also believe that the new generations of children will be hooked to the veneration of this supersonic blue hedgehog. For those of you who don’t know Sonic, tell them that he is a videogame character created in 1991 by SEGA to face the all-powerful Mario from Nintendo.

In the 90s there was a great debate about who had the best video games among the owners of the SEGA megadrive or those who had the colorful Super Nintendo. As you can guess at that time I had an elegant and powerful Megadrive. My first game console! I assure you that with 12-13 years I freaked out with Sonic’s graphics, history, music and speed. In the next releases of Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles I was even more speechless, because if you got the 7 Emeralds Sonic could be transformed into Super Sonic in the style of Goku from my also beloved Dragon Ball series.

This kind of details dazzled me and I had a great time defeating the evil Eggman again and again. Well, almost 30 years later the movie has arrived! SEGA sank after some failed consoles, although it still exists as a video game developer and you can find excellent ports of the classic games for smartphones. In any case, I must congratulate them for dusting the old Sonic, modernizing him and present him in a fun way for the new generations. Come on! I’m going to make a little synopsis of the movie!

The film begins with a Baby Sonic that lives in its universe, beaches, waterfalls, loopings, super beautiful and that totally reminds the world that you have seen in video games, but in 3D and with good CGI. There baby Sonic runs happily and he is aware that he has a very special power. His adoptive mother is a giant owl, Longclaw, who takes care of him and teaches him to be good.

Longclaw explains him that this great power will always want to be controlled by someone and he must keep it in secret. But baby Sonic is careless, they follow him to his lair and attack them with arrows. That’s when Longclaw gives him precise instructions, while sacrificing himself to allow him to escape. The key to everything is the rings, as in the game there are some special super rings that allow you to teleport, using these rings he must go to the Earth and there he will hide better so that this type of incident will not happen again. In the game these rings served to teleport Sonic to the special Bonus screens that were hilarious!

In this case, Sonic arrives to the earth and hides in a cave near a small village stereotypical of Montana that is located in a large natural park, there he can run around, but he has learned the lesson. Although he knows everyone, he does not let himself be seen by others, he puts nicknames on them and he imagines that he talks to them. Actually the only person who claims to have seen him, is Crazy Carl, and he calls him: the blue devil, but everyone takes him for a crazy person. The fact is that so much loneliness makes Sonic go a little crazy. After this introduction we see that the lonely hedgehog feels unhappy about the situation, that is when he drops his guard and as aresult of despair he creates an electromagnetic discharge that leaves the west coast of the United States without electricity. For this reason the United States government starts investigating the incident. Sonic is no longer safe and Dr. Ivo Robotnik, Jim Carrey, is the one designated to detect the source of the problem and solve it. I love Jim Carrey in this movie because he reconnects with the most delusional and exacerbated interpretation from Ace Ventura.

Sonic in this scenario wants to follow the instructions of his adoptive mother, use another special ring to escape to another world and be safe again. But a chance encounter with the local police, James Marsden, complicates matters. After the presentations, both decide to join forces to escape Robotnik and get Sonic to leave the planet. For this reason, they must go to San Francisco that gives the viewer a beautiful Road Trip where they will eventually have to confront the Robots that Dr. Robotnik sends them.

In the end, Robotnik will try to hunt himself the hedgehog to make experiments with him and use his power as a source for his creations. The film follows a classic and video game scheme. But the director Jeff Fowler is very clever and takes advantage of the dimensional portals to run Sonic through the iconic Paris with its Eiffel tower, the very long Chinese wall or the pyramids of Egypt, it is only CGI, but it is very impresive in the form of interplanetary persecution.

I must warn you that the film is very predictable, but it entertains and has good gags from both Sonic and Robotnik. If you liked Sonic as a child you will like this movie. I liked it more because I am a superfan of Sonic that is why I created the YouTube channel Block Surprise or the Sonic products specialized store allSonic.shop. But I am convinced that the little ones will love him. The redesign of Sonic for the film was a total success and I am sure that in this way SEGA will sell enough merchandising of the film. Please look at the credits until the end, while the lyrics come out, you watch an 8-bit Sonic sequence that reminds the classic video games and that sums up the movie as our CineFix friends do. And after that there is a nice surprise for a possible sequel.

Easter Eggs with SPOILERS

1. The town where Sonic arrives on earth is called Green hill, exactly like the first Zone of the original Sonic the Hedgehog game. Nice wink!

2. When Sonic plays with the nunchakus in the ribbon he wears you can see the window where Sonic himself appears in the presentations of his classic games.

3. The planet full of giant mushrooms where Sonic must escape after the earth is none other than Mushroom Valley Zone. Where in the game Sonic & Knuckles we can find Knuckles, I bet what you want Knuckles to be in the sequel.

4. Crazy Carl carries a Sonic robot portrait made by himself, but if you look closely you will see that Sanic, the famous Internet meme. Poor Carl no one believed him, he should be called Carl Observer!

5. In a road bar Sonic takes the opportunity to eat some hot dogs with chili, this is a nod to the cartoon series where Sonic and Tails went crazy for hotdogs!

6. Robotnik’s glasses and mustache when he is confined in Mushroom Hill, are much more like Dr. Eggman than we saw in video games.

7. At the end of the movie we can see Miles Prower aka Tails who has surely come to earth to see his inseparable friend Sonic!!