Sonic the Hedgehog 3 - Review

Sonic faces his greatest enemy yet in Sonic the Hedgehog 3. You know, Shadow may be Sonic's greatest enemy, but my greatest enemy playing the game when I was a kid was this. This video is brought to you by Miracle-Made. Go to TryMiracle.com slash Dan for a special offer and stay tuned after the video for more info. Hello everybody, I'm Dan Merl here with my review of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which hits theaters this weekend. And the Sonic franchise actually occupies a very unique space when it comes to this channel. The first Sonic movie was also the first movie that I reviewed after I started this channel back in April of 2020. It was after it had been moved out of theaters because theaters were closed and was available to watch at home. I said at that time that Sonic was gonna be one of the top movies of the year until they started to come out again in July, which, you sweet summer child, I had no idea what was ahead. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 came out and I was in a completely different studio in Arkansas, and now Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is out and I'm in yet another different studio in another part of Arkansas. But while my life may have changed drastically over the course of these films being released, one thing that I actually like about them is that they themselves are remarkably consistent. Director Jeff Fowler returns for this installment, as do writers Pat Casey, Josh Miller, and John Whittington, along with the rest of the cast, and that may explain why these movies have been so consistent. Sonic Knuckles and Tails are enjoying a well-earned break with their human friends Tom and Matty when that piece is broken up by the escape of a hedgehog named Shadow, voiced by Keanu Reeves, who's been kept in stasis by GUN, the secret agency from Sonic 2, for several decades. Shadow is incredibly powerful and has a bone to pick with humanity, so Sonic and friends reluctantly turn to their old enemy, Dr. Robotnik, played by Jim Carrey once again, for help. But they get a two-for-one deal when Robotnik's grandfather, Gerald, also resurfaces with his own secret plan. You'll hear me say this a lot when I'm reviewing franchise movies, but I think I'm the most confident when I talk about this in relation to Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which is that if you liked the first two Sonic movies, then I think that you will absolutely like this one, because they are so similar in tone and style and humor and everything else, and that's because the creative team has largely been kept together from the first movie. It's been a long time, you know, a couple years or so since I've seen the first two Sonic movies, but to the best of my recollection, I actually think this one, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, might be my favorite one so far. A lot of times when I give a negative review to a family film or a kid's movie, I'll get the same reaction, which is, well, what did you expect? This movie wasn't made for you. Of course, you're not going to appreciate it. You need to understand that this is for kids, and my answer to that question, what do you expect, is really this movie and this franchise in general, because the Sonic movies are obviously made with kids in mind. But at the same time, there is also stuff in the movies that I, as an adult, can appreciate and laugh at. There are jokes in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 that left me chuckling well into the next scene, and that's really all I ask for and all I do expect. You can throw in the fart jokes and the stuff that's obviously going to make kids laugh. I'm not saying that every kid's movie needs to operate on some deeper Pixar level that adults can decode and understand in their own way, but just throw in some humor that I will also appreciate and respond to as an adult. And I think that you get that from this Sonic film, again, maybe more so even than the other two. Why do you look like me? I don't look like you. You look like me. Why do you look like me? Hey, you know what? I'll ask the questions, new hedgehog. Who are you? Why do you look like me? A big part of that humor is delivered by Jim Carrey, who I thought was really good in the previous two films and at his best in this one. I'm a kid who was raised in the 80s and 90s when Jim Carrey had that magical year of 1994 with Ace Ventura, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber. I was 11 years old, and I feel like I sort of grew up along with Jim Carrey in that as he took on more serious roles, I was maturing and growing into a bigger and bigger movie fan. By the time he did Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in 2004, I was in college. I fell in love with that movie. I fell in love with his performance in that film, and so I have become a devoted fan of Jim Carrey. And that probably is a big reason why I liked this movie so much, because so much of the humor is generated by him. A lot of people have joked about him saying that only a golden script would bring him out of retirement, but it's easy to see why he came back for this movie, because he gets to play two roles, and I loved his performance playing two different generations of Robotniks. The double Jim Carrey gag isn't just for a scene or two, it's pretty much for the entire movie, and he gets to indulge in all of his comedic instincts. These are two very distinct characters with two distinct different kinds of jokes, different kinds of humor. I was having a blast watching him be able to do these performances, and you can tell that he was having a blast doing them. So yes, this may not be the Oscar contender that many thought when Jim Carrey said that only the golden script would bring him back, but you can see why he wanted to do this so badly. There's a dance sequence with the two Robotniks that, in another movie with maybe a different actor, I think would have been really tough for me to take. But because it's Jim Carrey, and he's giving it two times 100% commitment, I thought that was one of the better sequences in the movie. And I actually feel like my feelings about Jim Carrey are similar to how other people feel about the Minions. There are people who love the Minions, love their humor, and they don't understand why people don't like Minions movies. I love Jim Carrey. I love his humor, and so I love movies with Jim Carrey in them. So maybe that will help people to relate, and maybe that will help me to relate to people who don't understand when I say things like, I hate the Minions. If you hate Jim Carrey, if you don't like his style, if you don't like his humor, then this movie's gonna be a pretty rough trip for you. It's not all Carrey though. The voice performances are on point as well, with Ben Schwartz, Colleen O'Shaughnessy, and Idris Elba delivering zingers as Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, and Keanu Reeves brings a different energy as Shadow. Darker, but often more like the straight man in a comedy troupe. James Marsden and Tika Sumpter make the most of their supporting roles, as they have throughout this franchise, and Lee Majdub continues to find his comedic moments as Robotnik's long-suffering assistant, Agent Stone. The story itself also works, because it isn't just an afterthought, something that's there just so you can cram in a bunch of cheap jokes. Shadow's vendetta is understandable, and the script gives him, dare I say it, pathos and great motivation. And there's a great message in the movie about trauma, and how you can allow it to change you as a person. Not too shabby for a movie about talking, speed-running hedgehogs. The action is also well done, with the usual video game inspired power-ups highlighting different sequences, and I'm sure there's a whole level of deep-cut video game references that I didn't even appreciate, because I haven't picked up a controller to play a Sonic game since the days of the 16-bit Sega Genesis. For example, there is a mid-credits scene that has a reveal and maybe some hints about where the franchise might go next, that elicited a huge response from the preview audience I was with, because they obviously understood the reference that was being made. I didn't get it, but that's okay, because I also And the Sonic movies have always been very good at this. They pack the movies with references to video games that the fans will love, but they don't make somebody who's not as invested in the Sonic lore feel lost. I'm so out of touch, for example, that I either didn't know or forgot until about a third or halfway into the movie, that Tails is a boy-flying fox and not a girl-flying fox. So yeah, that's where I am as far as the deep Sonic lore. Overall, I'd say that I enjoyed Sonic 3, and I would happily watch it again with younger family members if they wanted to go, which is certainly something that I can't say about every kid's movie. Now, while I don't review movies from a kid's perspective, I give my opinions from my perspective. I did kind of try to put myself into the shoes of a kid now, especially in light of the fact that we have two big family films, Mufasa and Sonic 3, that are opening this weekend. And I honestly think that I might be interested in seeing both of these films if I were much, much younger, but this is the one that I would want to see two or three times in the theater, and I think this is the one that's really going to get kids excited and talking to their friends. And so even though Disney is the big juggernaut, even though the first Lion King movie, at least the 2019 one, made a billion dollars, given my reaction personally to both films, and given just the energy that I felt in the two different screenings I was in, I think that Sonic 3 has a really good chance of emerging, at least on the domestic side, as the box office king of Christmas. Mufasa may be the Lion King, but Sonic may be the ticket-selling king. So on my personal scale, I'm giving Sonic the Hedgehog 3 a rating of it's good. Yes, it does have some dumb stuff that you see in a bunch of other kids' movies, but it also has some stuff that I think that the adults are going to enjoy, and I think the kids, as Marty McFly would say, are really going to love it. So those are my thoughts on Sonic 3. What do you think? What are your plans for this holiday weekend going into Christmas next week, and which movie you're going to see? 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