WARNING: Major Spoilers for “Sonic The Hedgehog 3.”
2024 has been a year of either financial success for the film industry with the releases of films like “Deadpool and Wolverine” in July and “Wild Robot” in September, or one of financial cinematic disasters with the release of films such as “Borderlands” in August. Despite a rather back and forth year in terms of success and failure, 2024 concluded its successes with one of the films released in the month of December, Paramount Pictures “Sonic The Hedgehog 3.”
It is the third installment of the Sonic film franchise directed by Jeff Fowler. Inspired by Sega games such as “Sonic Adventure 2” (2001) and “Shadow The Hedgehog” (2005), this installment explores the story of Sonic (Ben Schwartz), Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey), and Knuckles (Idris Elba) attempting to stop a new threat to Earth, Project: Shadow (Keanu Reeves). Upon realizing that they are no match for this new threat, they decide to enlist the help of an unexpected ally, Dr. Eggman (Jim Carrey) and Agent Stone (Lee Majdoub).
Throughout the movie, we experience three major plots happening with the ensemble of characters. The first follows Sonic struggling to put trust in his team, leaving most of the dangerous missions to himself. The second delves into what caused Shadow to fall down the dark path of the revenge that he harbored for over 50 years. The last of these plots focuses on the relationship between Eggman and his grandfather, Gerald Robotnik (Jim Carrey), leaving Stone without much attention for the majority of the film. All of these plots come to an astounding conclusion in the final act when Gerald turns on his grandson, claiming that “he’s no Maria” and plans to destroy the world using Shadow’s abilities.
Reminiscent of “Sonic Adventure 2,” Shadow decides to turn over a new leaf and defend Earth from its incoming destruction alongside Sonic, which some fans presumed may have cost him his life. From this experience, Sonic learns to be more trusting to his allies and lets them contribute more often as a team. The film ends with two different post credits scenes, the first being the reveal of two differently beloved characters making their appearance on the silver screen, Amy Rose and Metal Sonic, and the second revealing that Shadow may have survived the destruction of the ARK.
Upon my first viewing of this film on Christmas Eve, I had enjoyed a myriad of details within this film. The action scenes are some of the best that we have seen throughout the set of movies, as well as holding the story to be the most accurate to the source material out of the three films. The character interactions in the movie stand out in their own unique ways, whether they are fun and entertaining with Eggman and Gerald, heartwarming for Shadow and Maria, or more tragic between Shadow and Sonic.
Another detail I enjoyed was the interesting and tragic backstory of Shadow, one shown throughout a number of flashback scenes allowing the viewer to understand his side of the equation. The final act when all three plots had concluded left me speechless and truly excited for a possible fourth movie in the near future. Lastly, the montage that Eggman had with his grandfather ensued in various shenanigans. However, some of my favorite scenes include the first encounter with Shadow, leading to the final act, the fight scenes with Sonic and Shadow, and the post credits scenes which revealed more about a possible fourth movie.
Unfortunately, no matter how much we admire it, nothing can ever be considered perfect. Some flaws are that compared to the two roles Jim Carrey played, Shadow got less screen time and only some of the humor. Hence, traditional Sonic the Hedgehog corniness can feel out of place. The middle segment, while it can have its charms somewhat drags for the majority of the film. Also, there were hardly any ties to the 2005 game outside of Shadow briefly holding a gun and escaping on a motorcycle.
Regardless of these flaws, it is a dream come true for fans of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and an overall enjoyable movie for both friends and family.
