Sonic the Hedgehog 3

This weekend, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is released in theaters. This movie follows Sonic and his friends as they fight a new enemy threatening to wreak havoc on the Earth. I think the Sonic movies are some of the better video game adaptations out there, and I had a lot of fun with the first two films, so I was excited to see what was going to happen with this film with them bringing in Shadow.

I had a lot of fun with this movie. I found it to be the best out of the three Sonic films. The movie wastes no time getting started with the main story as it jumps right into the adventure after only about 5 minutes in the movie. The movie essentially doubles down on everything that worked about the previous movies and trimmed out the stuff that didn't. This is a prime example of a franchise that learns from its mistakes. I like how the movie has a bit of a darker tone than the previous movies. The movie is about grief and revenge so having a darker tone makes sense for the story they are trying to tell. This movie also has an extremely streamlined plot. There is no human subplot that distracts from the main story. It is only about Sonic and the conflict with Shadow. Of course, just like the last two films, Jim Carey is a ton of fun in this movie. This movie is even better with it because there are two of him. Jim Carey is one of the few actors who can play off of himself so well. Even at 60 years old, he still has the same high energy that he had in the 90s. I thought that the addition of Shadow was very well done. He is the one character in the franchise that isn't written to be funny and he still works. His story adds a great amount of emotion to the film as we the true tragedy of his origins and understand the reason driving him in this movie. This is the most emotional of the three films in the franchise.

I don't have a ton of issues with this movie. I wish it would have been a little longer and thought it could have spent a little more time with the whole Robotnik and Sonic working together idea but beyond that, there wasn't a whole lot wrong with this film. Keanu Reeves as Shadow took me out of the movie a bit because all I could hear was Keanu but these are just nitpicks at this point.

Overall, this is a fun family movie that will keep both kids and adults entertained. This movie finally cracked the formula about what people like about the Sonic movies.

Grade: A- Score: 8.5/10 Recommendation: Check it out