Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Review: Gotta Go Fast

With Sonic the Hedgehog 3, director Jeff Fowler continues his hot streak of giving us the best video game-to-film adaptations ever made. 

In an era where blockbuster entertainment is synonymous with unimpressive visuals, paper-thin storytelling reliant on jingling keys, and dull multiversal shenanigans, here’s a crossover event that not only looks show-stopping but contains a story full of real, tangible stakes anchored by an arc that builds upon what its prior movies (and television series) have set up. 

Of course, that doesn’t mean director Jeff Fowler won’t indulge in the jingling of the keys, particularly during its mid-credits scene (which will not be spoiled here), which made the entire crowd go ballistic during an Early Access ScreenX Fan Event (side note: do not watch a movie in ScreenX). But those moments of pure fan service, which only hardcore fans of the SEGA video game series will recognize, don’t feel desperate or artificial. They build up on what the prior installments introduced during its ending tags. The first film concluded with the promise of Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessy) appearing in Sonic the Hedgehog 2. In the sequel, Shadow’s (Keanu Reeves) existence is revealed, leading us to believe that the third film is all about him. 

And it absolutely is all about the complete polar opposite of the lovable blue hedgehog (voiced once again by Ben Schwartz). That’s why Fowler opens – and ends – the story with him, who, during his introduction scene, vows revenge against the people who locked him up for fifty years. Upon his awakening, he immediately disposes of all G.U.N. agents inside a base in Tokyo and plans to destroy their base in London. It’s at that moment that Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles’ (Idris Elba) peaceful idyll with Tom (James Mardsen) and Maddie Wachowski (Tika Sumpter) is interrupted by G.U.N. Director Rockwell (Krysten Ritter), who takes the Hedgehog, Fox, and Echidna to Tokyo in an attempt to stop Shadow before his plan goes into motion.

Being a hedgehog who runs on chaos energy, Shadow easily beats our trio of heroes (and even gets an iconic pose with a gun – an image that will only have significance to those who have played “Shadow the Hedgehog”) and leaves to reunite with his creator, Dr. Gerald Robotnik (Jim Carrey). That’s right – Dr. Ivo Robotnik’s (also played by Jim Carrey)…grandfather. Eggman eventually learns of this by forming an unlikely alliance with Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles after discovering that his drones were used to frame him as the primary target for an attack against a G.U.N. operative, who gave crucial pieces of information to Sonic on Shadow’s upbringing. 

Gerald and Shadow want not only to exact revenge against G.U.N. for killing a young girl they held dear but also to exterminate all living human beings on planet Earth by firing a massive orbital laser that would blow it all up. And since Shadow has personally involved Sonic in the battle, the fight to save Earth has become far more personal than when the three accepted the mission from a director who purposefully kept them in the dark so they would have no emotional attachment to disposing of the black and red hedgehog. 

For a third outing, a story like this could’ve been treated haphazardly. Few blockbusters of this scale care about their characters, especially well-known intellectual properties, beyond selling tickets by merely encouraging the audience to point and clap in recognition of things they know. There’s no emotion other than the odd pause that allows the audience to clap because they see Chris Evans appear as Johnny Storm and say, “Flame on!” in Deadpool & Wolverine. I highly recommend re-watching that film at home and realizing that it stops for a bit, ever-so-slightly, to let the audience cheer in rapturous applause before a character resumes talking. 

When a ‘movie’ doesn’t offer anything beyond turgid visuals and corporate victory laps, what’s the point of wasting our time with it? Thankfully, Fowler and screenwriters Pat Casey, Josh Miller, and John Whittington don’t fall into the trap of writing a screenplay that’s chock-full of references with nothing else to offer. Instead, they smartly create narrative arcs for us to latch onto before satisfying fans craving more. First, they demonstrate the extent of Shadow’s powers through a bravura action setpiece in the streets of Tokyo so the audience understands who the characters are dealing with. And it isn’t good news. 

From there, his vulnerabilities are smartly explored by way of extended flashbacks that showcase his creation and a bond he had with a human that ultimately ended in tragedy. Add a gut-punch of a blow for Sonic when he goes face-to-face with Shadow for a second round, and you’ve got all the ingredients for a much darker yet more fulfilling arc for the titular character. Sonic has always been in control of the action, no matter how larger-than-life his enemies were. That’s what makes him such a thrilling character to watch: quipping even in the face of cataclysm (perhaps to hide his insecurities, which get wondrously explored when the fight against Shadow gets personal).

But in battling someone with a tormented past, Sonic quickly realizes that he’s no longer in control of what happens to the world if Shadow’s pain can’t be fixed. Sonic’s polar opposite has never been able to suppress this anger entirely, leading him to never think about the consequences of his actions and always lead with a boiling internal rage that has grown inside of him, in stasis, for over fifty years. The conflict is far more complicated than the classic good vs. evil story between Sonic and Eggman, which has been the central narrative of the first two installments, and that’s only because the character of Shadow is a multi-layered one. 

In representing such an icon in video game media, Keanu Reeves gives the right emotional texture through his vocal turn and ultimately makes us feel for his plight near the movie’s thunderously exciting climax, which cinematographer Brandon Trost visualizes with compositions straight out of George Lucas’ Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith and Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel. Sonic has never looked and felt this grandiose. The weight Trost brings to the images makes them feel so alive and eye-popping that one immediately forgets that we’re watching computer-generated creatures. But it also helps that, when the movie eventually reaches this set piece, we fully care about Shadow, just as we care about Sonic, ultimately making what could’ve been a mindless battle of CGI gunk into one hell of an emotional wallop.

By always building on the franchise’s foundations and improving with each title, Fowler has given a new life to the anthropomorphized blue hedgehog that the video games simply haven’t for a long time. He recognizes SEGA’s past (and current) failures while also acknowledging that the team might have made a mistake early on by not giving the character the accurate design he deserved, which led to the first film being delayed so this issue could be urgently fixed. Had that happened, the franchise would’ve never passed the first installment. And while no one can fix a weak screenplay, the fact that the filmmaker listened to fan feedback on Sonic’s design was incremental for the sequel to be a massive improvement over the first.

It’s because of this that the fan service doesn’t feel egregious. The story comes first, supported by action setpieces that take full advantage of the cinematic landscape to visualize Sonic’s powers in ways no one has seen in a video game but has always dreamed of witnessing with such beauty on the big screen. When Fowler has properly built that emotional center, which feeds Sonic and Shadow’s storyline, and Robotnik’s eventual realization that there may perhaps be more than wanting to ‘rule the world’ (Carrey is still on top form, alongside Lee Majdoub’s Agent Stone, who’s still having the time of his life), he can jingle some keys because we now love these characters and want his stories to continue, should they be treated with the same reverence for the character ever since they killed Ugly Sonic and course-corrected before the avalanche of backlash would turn into a deadly tsunami.

I don’t know whose decision it was to design Sonic like this, but it doesn’t matter anymore. We’re now in the third Sonic movie, and the franchise is showing absolutely no signs of stopping, with Sonic the Hedgehog 4 greenlit for release in 2027. Perhaps one could ask Fowler to pump up the breaks before the franchise grows stale, and it would be more than justifiable after concluding the third film with such a poignant and heartfelt climax. However, with what the mid-credits scene sets up, my (eventual) 29-year-old self will be there on day one when it comes out. The Sonic movies have reignited the inner kid in me that I thought was lost by the endless sea of sludgy, lifeless blockbusters that do nothing but waste our precious time on this planet.

With Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Jeff Fowler has solidified its place as the most imaginative and exciting family film franchise of the decade and one that will stand the test of time as the best video game-to-film adaptation ever made. The aching earnestness and adoration of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Shadow is deeply felt, not only through the eyes of hardcore fans but also novices who may be compelled to pick up a controller and explore the Green Hill Zone once they return from the cinema, having found a new world, full of surprises, to discover and fall in love with.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is now available to watch globally in theaters.