Mark Reviews Movies: SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2

Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Paramount Pictures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 7, 2022

Our really, really fast hedgehog protagonist isn't lonely anymore in Sonic the Hedgehog 2. With that quality of this character gone, there's nothing more to Sonic (voice of Ben Schwartz), except that he's incredibly fast, blue, and constantly making jokes, even during moments of extreme stress and peril.

This change, perhaps, was inevitable as soon as that famous video game character received his own movie. No fan of the games probably cares if Sonic has an inner life or some goal for which to strive (save for collecting rings and, in this installment, a gem), so those with such expectations in mind likely won't find fault or deficiency in this sequel. It's a bigger movie, to be sure, with more computer-generated characters and large-scale action sequences.

Returning director Jeff Fowler's movie possesses the same thinking as most video game sequels: Do the same thing, but do more of it. This one definitely does more, but in terms of giving us any tangible reason to care about the established foundations and the new additions, the movie does less.

Sonic still lives with his human friends Tom (James Marsden), a small-town Sheriff, and Maddie (Tika Sumpter), the cop's wife, but at night, the super-fast hedgehog has taken to being a superhero in San Francisco—well, trying to be one, at least. After Sonic causes more damage than he could have prevented in foiling a bank robbery, Tom has a heart-to-heart with his little, blue buddy about being a real hero, and with his words of wisdom out of the way, there's no longer anything for Tom, his wife, or any human character—with one exception—to do.

Tom and Maddie take a vacation in Hawaii for the wedding of her sister Rachel (Natasha Rothwell), in a subplot that makes it clear that screenwriters Pat Casey, Josh Miller, and John Whittington are dismissing these previously important characters from the plot (That the characters and their wedding-weekend misadventures are still in the movie just adds unnecessary bloat). The only human who matters here is Dr. Ivo Robotnik (Jim Carrey), who has found a way to escape his exile on a faraway planet with the aid of Knuckles (voice of Idris Elba), a red echidna with oversized hands.

Knuckles is looking for Sonic and, more importantly, a source of unlimited power called the Master Emerald. Robotnik offers to show Knuckles the way to Earth and their shared foe.

Yes, the plot is a bit different this time, in that, instead of a road trip, it's a globe-hopping scavenger hunt for clues to the location of the Master Emerald. Sonic receives some help from Tails (voice of Colleen O'Shaughnessey), a fox with two tails, that the creature spins like the rotor of a helicopter in order to fly, and a penchant for making gadgets with very specific uses but questionable results. A malfunctioning translating device, for example, leads Sonic and Tails to get into a dance-off with some Siberian toughs, and the rest of the humor throughout the movie is equally clichéd and predictable. Sonic is quick with a sarcastic pop-culture reference, and the role of Robotnik once again sees Carrey in hyper-mugging mode, as he drops various puns and has little drones twirl his excessively villainous mustache.

Those jokes are nearly constant, thanks to Sonic's only notable characteristic, and when the movie isn't giving us setpiece gags (like the dance competition and all of the useless nonsense at the wedding), it's either explaining its overly simplistic plot and back story (A sequence explaining the origins of the Master Emerald is shown in striking animation, at least) or offering up an action scene. The action sequences are a slightly diverse bunch, if only in terms of locale—the opening pursuit in the city, another pursuit on a mountainside road, an escape from flying drones down a snowy mountain. The variations on the chases are a battle at a resort hotel, a race through a sunken temple filled with booby traps, and a lot of chaos on and high above the streets of a small town, on account of a giant robot wreaking destruction. In other words, we get some distinction without much difference.

These sequences mostly amount to a lot of digital business and noise, as Fowler seems more concerned with spectacle than stakes. In general, the visual effects are fine, although the cartoon-ish appearance of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles translate into those characters feeling as if they possess no weight and exert little force on the world around them. That's appropriate, considering how little weight they have as actual characters, with Tails as chipper pal and Knuckles as a dim bruiser (Elba's line readings come across as rushed, but a paycheck is a paycheck).

Everything in and about Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is bigger. In expanding the world and characters and scale of this material, though, the filmmakers have also amplified how little substance there is to any of those elements.

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