Sonic the Hedgehog 2 movie review: Familiar but fun story of heroes and villains, aimed firmly at kids

Language: English

If I described the plot of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 without taking any character names, I could have been talking about a Marvel movie. Any Marvel movie. Even the humour in the film could well belong to the Elon Bezos of movie franchises. That is more of a statement on Marvel than on Sonic. You seem old enough to have kids of your own, MCU. Time to grow up, maybe?

Then again, Sonic 2 doffs its hat to the MCU so often, the hangover is probably intentional. The secret weapons it possesses are Jim Carrey and Idris Elba’s voice. Combine these with its overall earnest, inoffensive vibe – targeted firmly at children/families – and it becomes something you could potentially buy into, if you know what you’re signing up for.

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Director Jeff Fowler returns to direct the sequel, which takes the story forward from the last film, wherein Sonic (Ben Schwartz) managed to dispatch the evil Dr Robotnik (Carrey) to the Mushroom Planet. I assume that’s where Mario fans go if they don’t like blue hedgehogs. Cut to this film: Robotnik is something of an expert on mushrooms now. He’s using his big brain and a solitary blue quill he nicked off Sonic in the last film, to call for off-world help. And that brings to his door Knuckles (Idris Elba) the last surviving echidna, sworn enemy of the hedgehogs.

The pair set off on a quest for the Master Emerald – the one stone that rules them all – while hoping to take care of Sonic along the way. Our heroic hedgehog, meanwhile, has been adopted by the Wachowskis, and is trying to adopt the crime-fighting vigilante life, but with limited success. He’s still too young, he’s told. He doesn’t get to choose the moment he becomes a hero, he’s told. The moment will choose him, he’s told. You know what that means for the film.

Sonic meets his match in the far more powerful Knuckles. And while Sonic somehow seems quite like any other earthly kid, Knuckles only understands things that are literal. Quite like Drax, from Guardians of the Galaxy. Sonic even refers to him as ‘Winter Soldier’ at some point.

Did I mention the film doffs its hat to Marvel oh-so-often? Every time Sonic uses one of his rings to open a portal, I half-expect Benedict Wong to step out of it.

The plot plays out with a mildly annoying familiarity. It holds barely significant stakes, though they do seem to say quite often that the future of the world is on the line.  Instead, you’ll probably be more invested in a wedding that’s disrupted by the heroic aliens. Hedgehog parents Tom (James Marsden) and Maddie (Tika Sumpter) leave Sonic at home while they teleport to Hawaii for the wedding of Maddie’s sister Rachel, played by a scene-stealing Natasha Rothwell. Her gorgeous tropical wedding doesn’t quite go as planned, and that makes her mad.

Sonic even gets a sidekick in Tails (voiced by Colleen O’Shaughnessey), a double-tailed fox who can fly. Tails first showed up in the credits scene of the first film. Highly inspired by Sonic’s shenanigans then, Tails turns up to help Sonic face his enemies this time round, with questionable results. Still, it seems like a team is being assembled, for future films. Perhaps Sonic is being positioned as the gateway superhero franchise. Catch the kids young, so they’re primed for the theme park experience the big screen is going to offer them for the rest of their life. (I’m just being mean, surely it isn’t something so insidious.) Needless to say, the ending is a happy one. The world is safe, no other result was ever in question. What is an ending, though, when another movie is inevitable?

Truly, I’ve now watched two Sonic films only because they had Jim Carrey in the cast. He turns up, dialled to a hundred. There’s such free-flowing rhythm to his over-the-top delivery, it’s hard to believe any of it is scripted. The movie may be for children, but Carrey’s Robotnik would make for a fascinating chapter in an academic paper on Jim Carrey’s acting career. Robotnik has hints of Carrey’s Riddler, and perhaps even a little Ace Ventura. But he’s more accessible to his younger target audience. You don’t ever get the impression that Carrey is merely phoning it in.

Idris Elba’s Knuckles, on the other hand, is what I took away from Sonic 2. A pity that there isn’t nearly enough of him in the film, at least not for me. I want Elba to read me bedtime stories so I finally sleep well. Knuckles is red, he’s literal and he’s angry. Just tell him about a fight, and he’ll turn up for it. But he’s a sport, willing to learn, happy to merely let go and be. The teachable moments here come not from the blue hedgehog hero, but the big red pugnacious furball with Winter Soldier vibes. If there’s an Idris the Echidna film on the anvil, I’m here for it.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is playing in cinemas.

Rating: 2.5 / 5

Pradeep Menon is a Mumbai-based writer and independent filmmaker.

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