The Sonic Movie Looks Like a Bonkers Time, Regardless of Your Stance

From the moment details about the concept were released online, it couldn’t have been more evident the new Sonic the Hedgehog movie would make for an insane time.

It was coming from producers at Paramount who concocted the ostensibly crazy idea to make a live-action film instead of an animated or CG one, despite how difficult it can be to translate even semi-anthropomorphic characters to the human world. Worse, this immediately dredged up memories of Sonic’s previous interaction with humans, through the much-maligned Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 reboot, widely regarded as the worst game in the franchise. It is, however, memorable for all the wrong reasons, in terms of its plethora of glitches and a certain scene in particular.

Small bits of info about the movie dropped over the last few months, and reactions from the gaming public have veered between feelings of puzzlement and exasperation. Sonic himself has more human features than in other depictions, judging from his height, the size of his limbs, and his shoes, which immediately looked off-putting. The impressions weren’t any better with the reveal of this Sonic’s full body. There’s been plenty of time to adjust to it since then, but the strong reactions were bound to come roaring back with the release of the trailer. And boy did they.

The trailer arrived yesterday morning, and was a hot topic for most of the day. Sonic himself looks just as awkward as he did in stills and promotional posters, though again, there was time to mostly adjust to that awkwardness over the months. That’s “mostly” because this held until Sonic opened his mouth and showed his very human teeth; if the overall CG model wasn’t enough to invoke the Uncanny Valley, this did it. Though in fairness, this is better than the alternative of having hedgehog teeth.

The movie trailer led to more discussions about the upcoming Pokémon Detective Pikachu film, whose previews show that not all live-action video game adaptations involving animalistic characters have to look bad. Whether that particular film is actually good will be determined when it arrives in theaters on May 10, one week from Friday.

The tone of the Sonic film seems reminiscent of far too many other CG adaptations of animated works, relying on jokes about how out of place Sonic himself seems in the human world. The humor is different from other Sonic interpretations, to fit how different this version of Sonic the Hedgehog will be overall. The movie will take place in the rural town of Green Hill (named after the “Green Hill Zone” from the games!), and will involve Sonic’s quest to elude the government’s efforts to capture him. Humans are befuddled at Sonic’s mere existence in the human world, while Sonic himself is up to his wacky hijinks while fighting Dr. Robotnik (aka Eggman, though they’re going with Robotnik here). The concept is uninspiring at best.

A mostly-instrumental version of Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise plays in the background of the trailer, a hell of a song choice. It’s still mainly associated with Dangerous Minds, but even without most of the lyrics, it’s ill-fitting for the tone.

The movie will star James Marsden as Green Hills Sheriff Tom Wachowski, who frequently interacts with Sonic and apparently takes care of him. He previously played Cyclops in the X-Men films, a character who faded further from relevance which each passing film; but even with that, this is a hell of a fall. His role here is also hilariously reminiscent of the character played in bunny movie Hop. Neal McDonough will also star in the film, an accomplished actor who also just happened to play Bison in the execrable Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, meaning this will be his second video game adaptation. If that isn’t an ominous sign, I don’t know what is.

To no surprise, it’s Jim Carrey as Robotnik that steals the show in the trailer and stills, which you can see in the shot above. He sports some delightfully goofy outfits, and is the best Robotnik could have looked in a live-action Sonic film. The trailer also shows how he’ll chew the scenery with nearly every scene he’s in, with a performance that channels some of his best comedy roles. There’s a good chance he could be the shining light in a bad adaptation, following in the footsteps of the late Raul Julia as Bison in Street Fighter and Jeremy Irons as Mage Profion in Dungeons & Dragons.

The trailer is being harshly ridiculed online, with the movie being compared to the critically-maligned Smurfs movies, whose cartoon characters also didn’t make the transition to the big screen well. But Paramount will likely welcome that comparison, as the first Smurfs movie did well over $500 million worldwide despite the level of criticism. The sequels did almost as well, and they all made over $1 billion worldwide combined. You can bet the producers are hoping just as many kids want to see this film alongside huge Sonic fans who will go see it anyway despite loudly complaining about it.

The Sonic the Hedgehog film will release in theaters on November 8th, which will hopefully at least be so bad that it’s entertaining. If it does as well as any of the Smurfs movies, look forward to a sequel that will perhaps (and hopefully?) star Shadow the Hedgehog with his pistol, and Knuckles. At least Gangsta’s Paradise would fit both of them.