Sonic the Hedgehog 3 – Live and Learn

Wait, the 3rd live action adaptation of Sonic the Hedgehog isn’t the best film of the year… right?

Video game movies have a rocky history to say the least. Only since the box office failures of the superhero genre has Hollywood been interested in make more big budget adaptations. On a smaller scale, the Sonic movie franchise has been rocky on its own. The first one was not good, struggling to balance tone with adapting the source material faithfully. His second adventure on the big screen was a fun, drastically improving the action yet, still missing something.

You know what they say, third times the charm. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is the best in the franchise and is one of the best video game movies to date, if not the best.

The introduction of Shadow, voiced amazingly by Keanu Reeves, brings everything these movies have been missing. The opening scene alone has more depth and character development than arguably both past films. His story is what makes Sonic 3 speed past the competition, and glues together all filmmaking elements.

Shadow’s backstory and motivations are crystal clear. He is doing bad things, but you understand him and at times straight up support his actions. They do an excellent job staying true to his character, even making his iconic song from the games, ‘live and learn,’ tie into the story. when they played that song in the movie it was an “Avengers: Endgame final battle scene” kind of moment that, as the kids says, went incredibly hard.

Jim Carrey Plays both Dr. Eggman, & Dr. Gerald Robotnik, and he steals the show this time around. This feels very much like a swan song for the character (Eggman) and the actor himself. This is everything you’d want out of a classic Jim Carrey performance and it’s obvious he loves being in these movies. Dr. Gerald on his own though is a very interesting choice for this kid friendly franchise as he is very manipulative and very cruel. He’s definitely the best villain in the series.

Another spectacular improvement is Sonic himself. He is much less obnoxious in this film, and him being kind of useless as a person actually has repercussions this time around. Knuckles is the best side character in the film and has grown a lot since Sonic 2 and his own limited series from earlier this year. That limited series actually feels warranted after watching this, and only adds to this film rather than confusing people who didn’t watch the show.

The script succeeds at something fans have been asking for, for years. That being having the humans have less screen time and actually focus on the main characters. Since what feels like forever, anytime Hollywood makes a movie about a robot or alien, they always put it on earth, and they always make there be some dumb human character so the audiences feel more connected. This is dumb and Sonic 3 proves that. The first Sonic actually fell down this hole but it has redeemed itself.

Honestly, I don’t have much else to say about Sonic the Hedgehog 3. The film is just really, really solid. Yeah, there’s some plot holes here and there, but nothing that takes you out of the story. It is a vast improvement over the last movies. It balances fan service with story that adds to the overall legacy of these characters in a positive way.