Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Review

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Review

This past weekend we got a new Sonic the Hedgehog movie speeding into theaters. I was able to see the movie a couple days ago. But how is the movie? Does it live up to the hype? Let’s get started!

The Good

If you’ve seen me talk about the past two Sonic movies. You know that I wasn’t the biggest fan of those movies. It seems most people enjoyed this movie a whole lot more than I did. For me, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was easily the best of the trilogy. If I'm in the mood to rewatch a Sonic the Hedgehog movie, it’s most likely going to be this one. I feel like this is the right mix of everything in here. Where you get a ton of fun Team Sonic action, you get comedy, there’s some great villains, and you even get some heart that wasn’t really present in the previous two movies. So I think this is the most well rounded of the trilogy. There’s a few more ingredients added into this movie that I think make it work as a whole a bit more. I wasn’t as frustrated with this movie as I was with the previous two movies. Although, I don’t think this is a great movie. 

One of the nice new additions to this movie is Shadow the Hedgehog. I really liked what they did with Shadow in this movie. He’s easily one of the best characters of the franchise. What I appreciate about Shadow is that he’s the only character in the movie not used for comedy. Having him in this movie I think makes a huge difference. There’s two reasons for that. First up, his backstory to what he’s leading him to doing what he’s doing is very emotional. The movie spends a fair amount of time on Shadow’s backstory and what leads to his actions in the movie. They say in the trailers how there’s a lot of similarity between him and Sonic. But Sonic found family while Shadow dealt with pain. He’s often portrayed as being the opposite of Sonic. There’s something very interesting with villains that are characterized to be the opposite of our hero. Even in the third act some of the lines of dialogue between Sonic and Shadow are very powerful considering the movie is very much aimed for kids. It discusses a lot of those ideas in there that I thought were interesting. Another thing that makes Shadow the Hedgehog so cool is the legend himself, Keanu Reeves voices him. This is just great and perfect casting. I didn’t have knowledge of Shadow’s backstory prior to this movie. I haven’t really played Sonic the Hedgehog video games. Given Shadow’s personality that’s showcased in this movie. Keanu Reeves voicing the character seems like perfect casting. His dry one note voice fits so perfectly with how Shadow is characterized. 

Another thing that works about this movie is I think this movie has the best story of the entire trilogy. The first one’s plot being a road trip movie with a character that has super speed seemed weird to me. The second one was a globe trotting adventure with Sonic and Tails. This movie has a lot more emotional depth to the entire thing. But even with the plot with Shadow, Dr. Robotnik, Sonic, and the human characters all come together better. My biggest issue with Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is the wedding plot line wasn’t good. It took away from the fun of Sonic and Tails. In this movie James Marsden’s character has an important part to play in the movie. He doesn’t feel like he needs to be there for the sake of being there. Even how the human plot line ties in with Shadow and the Robotoniks are made since. The movie has a lot of characters going on. It’s about an hour and 49 minutes. It’s able to perfectly balance everything that’s going on. Everybody in the movie has a character arc and something that they’re doing. It’s even more impressive given just how fast this movie goes. The movie opens with Shadow’s backstory then it quickly moves into catching up with Sonic. Then we get the action set pieces that kick off the main plot for the movie. 

One thing that stood out to me about this movie is the visual effects for the movie. Since four of our lead characters are completely CGI. There’s a lot of CGI whenever they’re on screen and using their powers. Even as you move into the third act and you get the global threat going on. There’s more CGI present and it all looks great. This movie has a budget of $120 million and it’s impressive that this movie is able to look better then most of these $200 million blockbusters that release every single year. I feel like 2024 has given us a lot of those movies. Movies that have a lot of CGI, but have reasonable budgets and look great. There’s not one shot in this movie that I thought didn’t work. Up there with Dune: Part II, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is a blockbuster that has a reasonable budget but looks fantastic. 

Finally, when it comes to a Sonic the Hedgehog movie you have to talk about Jim Carrey. He’s easily one of the best parts and characters of this trilogy. Jim Carrey is one of my favorite actors of all time. I’m so glad that with Sonic the Hedgehog he’s had a career resurgence. In all three of the movies, he’s clearly having so much fun. Here he’s having even more fun because he’s playing two different characters. That’s just a lot of fun that comes with that. One of the stand out sequences of the movie is both versions of Robotnik dancing through this laser field. It was one of the sequences of the movie that made me laugh out loud. He’s such a good physical comedy actor. All throughout the movie he’s given these moments where he’s allowed to shine and be himself and it’s a lot of fun. One thing that surprised me about Robotnik in this movie. He’s given a character arc. I don’t wanna spoil anything from the third act. But he does grow and change in the movie. I think it works really well and ties into some of the themes being explored with Sonic and Shadow. Robotnik continues to be one of the stand out characters in the trilogy. 

The Bad

I know a lot of people are loving this movie. For me, I found a few more issues with this movie that held it back from being great. One of the weird common problems between this movie and the second one is they both feel too long. I do appreciate that this movie moved quickly. We got to our first fight with Shadow within the first 15-20 minutes of the movies. I was never bored watching the movie. But it felt like several sequences were extended way too long just to have some extra jokes in there. When it feels like scenes and sequences were extended just to have jokes. It makes the scenes feel a bit too long and the jokes become less funny. There’s this random joke in the movie about Knuckles being scared of Casper. It doesn’t really tie into the movie. It felt like a joke that should have been on the first draft of a movie. But felt like it could have been cut and the movie might have flowed better. I don’t want to spoil many of the jokes. I get that it’s a kids movie that’s supposed to have a lot of jokes. But I don’t know if the movie needed this many jokes. 

Another issue with this movie. I’ve never been a fan of the Sonic character. I get that he’s supposed to have a childlike energy about him. In that sense, I feel like he’s portrayed very well. But I think there’s two problems that come with that. First up, we’re in the third movie and I don’t feel like Sonic has changed. He’s still the annoying child that he was in the first movie. When promoting this movie, Ben Schwartz (the voice of Sonic) said that Sonic has matured going into this movie. I didn’t catch any sense in which Sonic had matured. There’s something frustrating about that. Our lead character should grow and mature with the movies. The fact that he’s not just seems weird to me. There’s a way to have Sonic still have his same personality but mature as he gets older. The other problem with Sonic is going back to what I said earlier. Most of the jokes that I referenced were forced and stretched sequences out to be longer. Most of those jokes came from Sonic. Where they give him lines after some serious stuff happens. Those lines undercut the tension of the moment. Once again, certain scenes felt stretched out because of his jokes. We know that a fourth movie is happening and I hope they change his personality going into the fourth movie. 

Finally, I thought the film had a weird mix of tone with how big it wanted to be. What I mean by that is the movie marketed itself as being the biggest movie of the trilogy. The third act stakes are bigger than ever. The movie absolutely delivers the promise of that going into the third act. I appreciate that the film has a big epic scale to the entire thing. But it feels weird to me knowing that the big epic movie isn’t the last one. It feels like it’s trying to tease that this is the end for the Sonic trilogy. But then decides not to be just so we can have more sequels. This movie has other mid-credit scenes that properly set up a fourth film. There’s a fan favorite Sonic character that appears. The way they do these mid-credit scenes just feels like the most generic way possible. There’s no cleverness to any of it. It feels like a cheap way to get people talking and to get them excited about a fourth movie. I feel like you easily could have made this movie to be the closing chapter of the trilogy. But they decided not to and I think that’s frustrating. 

Final Thoughts: I’ve never been super crazy about this trilogy of movies. I think there’s some fun moments in all of them. But the movies as a whole don’t fully come together and work for me. I do think this is easily the best of the trilogy. There’s a lot in this movie that I enjoy. But all three movies make big mistakes that hold it back from being great movies. This movie is helped with the addition of Keanu Reeves and two different Jim Carreys. 

The Score: 8.3/10 (B)