by Cain Noble-Davies

Year:  2024

Director:  Jeff Fowler

Rated:  PG

Release:  26 December 2024

Distributor: Paramount

Running time: 110 minutes

Worth: $17.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth

Cast:
Jim Carrey, Ben Schwartz, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba, Colleen O’Shaughnessey, James Marsden,

Intro:
… maintains every improvement that the second film made on the first, but amps up the characterisations and pathos to reach new heights.

In 2005, the wildly inconsistent Sonic game franchise reached one of its lowest nadirs with the release of Shadow the Hedgehog. Considered one of the worst games to come out of any series, it was lambasted for its terrible controls, nauseating self-seriousness, and giving its title character handguns and a motorcycle.

Cut to 2024, director Jeff Fowler (who worked on the cutscenes for Shadow as part of Tim Miller’s Blur Studios) has already seen two successes with the cerulean speedster, and is now returning to his roots by bringing everyone’s favourite edgy hedgy to the big screen for a third instalment. With his guns. And motorcycle.

The extent to which they all redeem themselves here may shock you.

Keanu Reeves’ turn as Shadow sticks to the brooding air that helped give the actor his much-deserved re-birth through John Wick, but there’s no strain to sell him as a ‘serious’ character. Like Knuckles before him, he reflects a darker side of the main character, almost a ‘what if?’ concerning the support network that Sonic has around him, and while his dialogue and delivery give it all the weight of dark matter, he’s not edgy for the sake of it… He shows Sonic the world through his own eyes, refracted through his own tragedies – a silent pleading for another road to take.

For the franchise of “gotta go fast”, this is pretty heavy stuff, but it is pristinely presented. The script taps into the heightened emotionality of anime and (as referenced in-film through one of Dr. Eggman’s many delightful gags) Spanish soap operas, where ideals like kindness and the importance of friendship become the scales upon which the entire world balances. To that end, it even takes one of the series’ weakest elements up to now (the involvement of human characters) and turns that into the linchpin for its surprisingly effective drama.

There’s silliness to be found still in the returning Mr. and Mrs. Wachowski, Agent Stone gets a much-appreciated glow-up, and hot damn, Jim Carrey is on another level here. With all manner of behind-the-scenes drivel involving golden scripts and monetary incentives to explain why he came out of retirement for this, but he sure isn’t behaving like this is just another paying gig; he’s putting in the work. The way that he balances parental angst and his trademark face humour (along with a dance sequence that shares the same surreal energy as the unexpected Mighty Boosh/Lonely Island collab from episode 4 of Knuckles) makes for one of his career highlights.

Sonic The Hedgehog 3 maintains every improvement that the second film made on the first, but amps up the characterisations and pathos to reach new heights. It aims for more sombre moods and atmosphere, and hits the target without making its comedy superfluous or drama morose. By the time the finale kicks in, Hollywood proves that, yes, they can make a good Dragonball Z movie… after a fashion.

8.5Ultrasonic
score
8.5
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