As characters go, Sonic the Hedgehog is a big deal.
A staple of Sega’s video game portfolio, Sonic is an an anthropomorphically alien blue hedgehog who, after first emerging in 1991, went on to star in countless games for the franchise, earning the company healthy sales and putting the plucky portal ring-equipped opponent of mad scientist Doctor Eggman firmly into the pop culture firmament.
With that kind of character loyalty and brand name recognition, it makes sense that Sonic found his way to the big screen in 2020 where, with supersonic speed and the remembered instruction of his Guardian Longclaw the Owl in hand, he was sent to Earth to escape the constant pursuit of the warrior-like red echidnas, finally settling in Green Hills, Montana where he lives with friends/parental figures Tom the “Donut Lord” (James Marsden) and Maddie (Tika Sumpter).
But the chasing didn’t stop there – how could it? It is, after all, Sonic’s raison d’être – with Sonic (voiced by Ben Schwartz) having to fend off his nemesis, Doctor Ivo Robotnik (presumably the renamed Doctor Eggman, played by Jim Carrey in trademark manically comedic mode) and the United States Department of Defense, before everything ends happily ever after.
Or not because with Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on the scene, narrative demands are such that Sonic has no choice but to take up the chase again, with Robotnik, back on Earth after exile on the Mushroom Planet (he rather amusingly refers to it as a “shitake place” aka how to swear in a kids’ movie without actually swearing) after him in the company of Knuckles (Idris Elba), a red echidna with muscles, huge hands and a thirst for revenge.
The two of them are determined to get Sonic, who’s enjoying some alone time with Tom and Maddie in Hawaii for the marriage of Maddie’s sister Rachel (Natasha Rothwell in gloriously amusing form) to the dashingly good-looking Randall (Shemar Moore), but are thwarted by Sonic’s capacity for super-fast self-preservation and the arrival of his bestie from the video games, Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey).
What is so enjoyable about this second outing in what is going to become a trilogy, at the very least, is that Sonic the Hedgehog 2 expands beautifully on the events of the first film, folding in key elements from the video games to gloriously propulsive effect.
It would have been all too easy to simple rinse-and-repeat the basic ideas from the first instalment, but Sonic the Hedgehog 2 goes further, injecting a surprising amount of emotional resonance into the film – Sonic matters to Tom and Maddie and they matter to him and their relationship is far more caring and poignant than you might expect – upping the villainy and Sonic’s battle to repeat it, and making the battle to escape Robotnik, with over-eager, well-dressed accomplice Stone (Lee Majdoub) far more complexity than video games generally tend to be.
Certainly the chase dynamic is very much in play, but while there is a full speed ahead element to the film, it also takes the time, allowing for wavering attention spans of the film’s key demographic, to let the characters share some heartfelt moments.
Granted it’s not Oscar-winning nighttime-of-the-soul level stuff but then why on earth would be – Sonic the Hedgehog 2 exists to touch your soul, make you laugh and offer you some escapistly colourful thrills and spills and it does that brilliantly and with a breezy confidence that it delivering successfully on the film’s premise.
There is, more than anything, a lot of fun to be had with the fact that Sonic is a push-the-envelope, rules-breaking kind of guy who also happens to have a heart of gold, a strong sense of right of wrong and the immaturity that comes from basically being a kid who acts first and thinks later.
The film’s respect for the depth and goodness of his character is what adds so much affecting resonance to the story because every step of the way, we know Sonic is acting from the very best of intentions, his concern always for his friends and found-family and for his new home and the life it has granted him.
We also benefit from Carrey’s ability to make his evil character, who’s bad in the kind of roguishly over-the-top way that made characters like Boris and Natasha from Rocky and His Friends so much fun, a delight, spitting out all kinds of classic movie references, including one indelibly hilarious moment when he and Knuckles are in a Lara Croft-like ancient temple – bonus points for referencing both a video game (apt) and a film in one fast-moving scene – seeking an all-powerful emerald that converts thoughts to matter and action, and they are chased by a Raiders of the Lost Ark boulder, prompting Robotnik to quip “I don’t want to die like this. It’s so derivative!”
At every turn, Carrey milks the melodramatically, hammy zeitgeist of classic cartoon villains while making it very clear he is nasty and aiming to make the lives of everyone who gets in his way, including Knuckles, a warrior of principle who begins to wonder if his new alliance was a wise move, miserably awful in his quest for power.
The story itself is relatively simple, but in this sequel which betters the original to a highly-entertaining degree, the characters and their interactions, which are given multiple opportunities to emote without once slowing down the manic action, bolster its tropes and cliches to the point where you find yourself actually emotionally invested in what’s going on.
You can’t help but end up loving Sonic, whom Schwartz invests with a cocky bravado but also a great deal of warmth, caring and quip-heavy, oneliner-savvy likeability, and his friends and family who don’t just help fight Robotnik because it’s the right thing to do but because they really like Sonic.
He’s a great guy and he’s creating mess and mayhem for all the right reasons, all while being hilariously sweet and funny, and it makes Sonic the Hedgehog 2 one of the rare super successful video game adaptations which stays faithful to the verve and fun of the source material while expanding and building upon it, creating an emotionally affecting story which happily envelops and entertains in equal measure, leaving you feeling actually buoyed and good about life in its finale-bright aftermath where good triumphs over evil (but of course it does) and everyone ends up happily ever after in ways that actually mean something.