Director: Jeff Fowler
Cast: James Marsden, Ben Schwartz, Tika Sumpter, Jim Carrey
Have I Seen it Before: No. I even took it upon myself to re-watch the original film. Isn’t it wild that we now have entire film franchises which have existed only in the time of COVID?
Did I Like It: I probably already covered most of this in my review of the first film, but: I think the mythos surrounding Sega’s mascot was always, and will continue to always be a complete and utter bore. The game was a faster Super Mario Bros., which certainly has its place, and reaching for those Chaos Emeralds adds a fun challenge layer to the game. But Knuckles? G.U.N.? Don’t even get me started on Shadow the Hedgehog, which has to be the dullest extension of a video game since the right Pong paddle.
The first film shakes most of that loose in favor of an admittedly wobbly human-best-friend story, but it was all serviceable, and to see Jim Carrey reach back for his inner-Riddler from <Batman Forever (1995)> was a delightful treat, made all the more heartening by the through that it might inspire the youth of today to go seek out the Bat-films of yesteryear.
This film only has Carrey continuing that schtick. Sonic’s best human pal (Marsden) is here, but his storyline is so perfunctory that what scant logic we have here would not have been impacted if both he and Sumpter were completely excised from the film.
Where does the film find the material to fill out the rest of the film while working with those defciencies? In Emeralds, and Knuckles (Idris Elba, who I hoped paid off a mortgage here), and Tales (Colleen O’Shaughnessey) and Shadow. I didn’t go into this film expecting much, but somehow it delivered everything I didn’t want.
Weird that a film would make me long for the restrained wonder that is Batman Forever, but here we are.