Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024) Review: An Entertaining and Surprisingly Emotional Third Sonic Movie
The success of the first two Sonic the Hedgehog movies lies in Jeff Fowler’s genre know-how direction of giving what the fans want. This includes the game-accurate characters of Sonic (voiced by Ben Schwartz), Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey) and Knuckles (Idris Elba) while embracing the video game’s zippy and vibrant tones and aesthetics. As much as I enjoyed the previous ones, Sonic the Hedgehog movies were mostly hit-or-miss when it comes to jokes. And not to mention Fowler’s penchant for distracting the core narrative to make way for the human subplots (the wedding part revolving around Natasha Rothwell’s Rachel and Shemar Moore’s Randall in the second movie quickly comes to mind).
The good news is that Fowler finally made the right choice reducing the human subplots to a bare minimum and focusing more on Team Sonic’s adventure in Sonic the Hedgehog 3. This time, Team Sonic — Sonic, Tails and Knuckles — are tasked by the G.U.N. to stop an attack in Tokyo. This leads to an encounter with Sonic’s look-a-like Shadow (Keanu Reeves) except with darker skin, red stripes and a whole lot angrier. The ensuing nighttime action sequence in the city of Tokyo showcases Fowler’s assured direction in staging a thrilling fight between Team Sonic and Shadow and later, a high-speed motorcycle chase that zips across the busy streets.
Earlier, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 already gets off to a promising start with Shadow single-handedly defeating the army with his super speed and teleportation powers (think Nightcrawler’s White House attack scene in X2: X-Men United). Like Idris Elba’s Knuckles making his memorable big-screen debut in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the introduction of Keanu Reeves’ Shadow is a nice addition to the franchise. Reeves’ blunt and matter-of-fact voice performance fits well with the no-nonsense Shadow character, whose primary target is exacting vengeance.
He even has a bittersweet backstory later in the movie, which gives Sonic the Hedgehog 3 an unexpected boost of emotional weight. We learn how Shadow and Maria ( a wonderful Alyla Browne), who is the elderly Gerald Robotnik’s (Jim Carrey) granddaughter first met in the highly-guarded military facility until an eventual tragedy changes everything. Keanu Reeves’ Shadow is no doubt the MVP of this movie and even steals the show each time he appears on the screen.
Going back to the story, it doesn’t take long before Team Sonic finds themselves reluctantly collaborating with the presumed-dead Dr Ivo Robotnik (also Jim Carrey) after defeating him in the second movie. Well, he’s still alive and they need him to help them on a mission. The story also deals with Ivo reuniting with his long-lost grandpa Gerald and the fact Carrey plays dual roles allows him to ham it up with his usual go-for-broke wacky shtick.
While it’s nice to see Carrey back in action after previously announcing his retirement after Sonic the Hedgehog 2, his over-the-top goofy antics tend to get a little stale and at times, trying too hard to make an impression (the part where Ivo and Gerald did their laser dance with one of The Chemical Brothers’ popular EDM song playing in the background comes to mind).
The jokes remain erratic while Tom (James Marsden) and Maddie (Tika Sumpter) are significantly and thankfully reduced to just minor roles, even though they do play an important part in helping Team Sonic at one point. The CGI continues to improve at every instalment and it helps when Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is granted with a bigger budget at Fowler’s disposal. Recurring voice cast Ben Schwartz, Colleen O’Shaughnessey and Idris Elba, in the meantime, bring enough sparks to their lively buddy-comedy chemistry as Sonic, Tails and Knuckles.
Fowler also deserves praise for sustaining a mostly consistent pace, even though the otherwise action-packed third act makes me feel he’s overstretching it for his own good. A few shortcomings aside, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is easily the best in the franchise so far. Do remember to stick around for the mid-credits (here’s one that’s going to make Sonic fans happy!) and post-credits scenes.
