Today the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 movie released in theaters. Having reviewed many of the games in the Sonic series, this website is an authoritative source on all things Sonic, and it demands respect. This review is almost entirely spoiler free.
What is it?
As with the first one, this is not really a Sonic movie, but more of a movie that happens to have Sonic in it. This movie is more closely tied to the games than the first movie was, though. It combines aspects of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and mixes them with the world that this movie series is in. They still largely ignore what Sonic’s abilities are and put him into situations that he would obviously be able to deal with if he actually used his abilities. The movie doesn’t really have any tension in it in the first place so this isn’t such a big deal, though.
As far as video game references go this movie doesn’t do anywhere near as much as it could have. A lot of the references are not Sonic related at all, instead just making jokes about general pop culture stuff. Whether or not it is funny is up to you but the level of comedy here is hardly impressive.
As far as acting goes all of the returning characters did a pretty good job and more or less matched how they did in the first movie. The only noticeable difference was the lines given to Eggman being noticeably worse than what they came up with for the first movie.
Tails and Knuckles
Obviously, the biggest draw of this movie is the characters. The same could be said to be true of the Sonic series in general. Knuckles leaves a bit to be desired, but Tails is pretty much perfect.
Tails was never a particularly entertaining character in the first place, mostly just acting as Sonic’s annoying sidekick in the games. In this movie they replicated that pretty much perfectly, including his voice. This is easily the best story involving Tails and his development as a character this series has ever seen as far as the games go (not a high bar).
Knuckles was turned into a weird brute character who doesn’t know about anything besides the Master Emerald because he isn’t from this world. Compared to what he’s like in the games, where he’s more like a meathead, this design feels like a downgrade. Knuckles being a meathead would have been much more appropriate for a comedy movie like this. The voice is okay for this movie, but it pretty much confirms that he won’t be rapping in future sequels. He never even chuckles once. This is one of the most popular parts of Sonic Adventure 2, which is one of the most popular Sonic games, so it’s unfortunate that they went this route.
Both characters were rendered pretty well, at least. Knuckles’ head is a bit large, but he is still way better than the first Sonic design they made for the original trailer of the first movie, for example. The CGI for the rest of the movie is pretty good most of the time too, with only a few exceptions.
Should you watch it?
If you didn’t like the first one definitely not. If you liked it enough to want to have basically the same experience again then you should watch it. If you are a Sonic fan who didn’t like the last one because it wasn’t enough like the Sonic games you will probably like this one a little bit more.
Overall it is about on par with the level of video game movie that has been coming out lately, but not that great as far as movies in general go.
