Somehow the first movie did well and now we have the inevitable and imaginatively titled Sonic the Hedgehog 2, although keeping in line with the videogames makes sense I guess. Nevertheless, the first movie in my opinion was utter garbage, visually poor garbage at that. Is this any better? No, no it is not.
Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) is still trapped on the Mushroom planet it seems, frankly a WAY more interesting location for a movie, but I digress. I get this is just a movie for kids but you just know things aren't looking good when Robotnik manages to escape said Mushroom planet with the most ridiculously over-the-top plan that conveniently relies on random characters being in the exact right spot or doing the exact right thing at the exact right time.
From this point on Robotnik meets Knuckles and the pair go back to Earth so they can both get Sonic. Robotnik wants revenge and to rule the world or whatever, Knuckles also wants revenge because he thinks Sonic screwed over his ancestors or something. This involves getting some mcguffins that will grant the user the power to basically do anything they want, or something like that. Hey look, this stuff works in videogames sure, but even in a dumbs kid's movie this is shallow stuff.
Meanwhile back on Earth Sonic is living with his politically correct mixed race family and getting into all kinds of generic teenager hijinks, because teenagers. What comes next is essentially the most cookie-cutter guff you could possibly imagine. You don't even need to watch the movie because if you've ever seen any other kid's adventure type flick you can guess. Robotnik gets back to Earth and with Knuckles help and super strength they both go after Sonic with his apparent infinite amount of robot drone things. These drones look highly technical and expensive but Robotnik has gazillions apparently and it doesn't matter how many get destroyed.
So cue lots of bad CGI battles with CGI drones, lots of destruction, and some Sonic and Knuckles fanbase fodder. Seemingly out of nowhere and for no other reason than just because, Tails turns up and teams up with Sonic because videogame! Sonic learns about mcguffin from Tails and off they go on some cheesy-ass adventures in Russia, some snowy mountains, and then deep underground in an undiscovered ancient temple. All said locations essentially recreate levels from Sonic games or any other generic platform videogame. In the end Robotnik betrays Knuckles so he teams up with Sonic and Tails and everyone battles Robotnik in his huge stupid looking mech that he creates using the mcguffin power.
These movies have to be some of the most overrated in years. On one hand it's tricky to review something like this because it's mainly for kids and I'm definitely not a kid anymore. Yet on the other hand I am a retro gamer and this is or should be somewhat directed at someone like myself as part of the old original fanbase from back in the day. Alas it seems they have (somewhat understandably) gone down the kid's route and simply made something insanely dumb. The entire thing is as generic as it gets but in this day and age originality is hard to come by so I get it.
The casting and acting are quite frankly abysmal and I can't understand why they made the choices they made. The voice casting of Edris Elba for Knuckles was completely 100% wrong in my opinion. His voice was way too deep, it just didn't sound right to me. Carrey merely tries to recapture his 90's lunacy and fails, much like he did in the first movie. His time is mostly spent with weak jokes and quips surrounding his moustache. Everything involving James Marsden, Tika Sumpter, and Natasha Rothwell was painfully bad. The entire wedding sequence just seemed like a reason to give Rothwell and Shemar Moore more screen time for comedy which was a huge mistake.
I mean, what can I say? I really didn't like this and it probably doesn't help that I really didn't like the first movie either. The whole franchise so far is overly simplistic and juvenile (I know I know) with bad acting and so-so visuals. It just feels like they're relying on Jim Carrey to carry the whole thing and unfortunately he isn't, or can't. Yeah sure Sonic and his old pixel friends look like their videogame counterparts and there are some nice touches dotted here and there, but the bulk is just puerile and cringe.
3/10
No comments:
Post a Comment