(courtesy IMP Awards)
Is it possible to quip merrily while still saving the world?
You might think the level of concentration needed to avert global annihilation might preclude any and all comedic utterances, black humour laced and otherwise, but in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, directed by Jeff Fowler (who also helmed the first two films, including the also reviewed Sonic the Hedgehog 2), the Sega’s franchise blue hedgehog protagonist manages it with aplomb.
Well, mostly.
In truth, this is the instalment in the three-part series – to date anyway; a mid-credits scene points to a fourth instalment being all but guaranteed – where Sonic, voiced by Ben Schwartz, finds himself bested by a new, equally as hedghogy antagonist.
But whereas Sonic is all love and good intentions (and yes, impulsive poor decisions at times), part of a found family that includes fellow aliens, Miles “Tails” Prower (Colleen O’Shaughnessey) and Knuckles the Echidna (Idris Elba), and parental figures, Tom and Maddie Wachowski (James Marsden and Tina Sumpter), his and his team’s new enemy, Shadow (Keanu Reeves) is all bristling anger and vengeance.
Held for 50 years in stasis by G.U.N. (Guardians Unit Nations) on an offshore Japanese island, Shadow, who arrived, Superman-like, via a meteorite in a Midwestern cornfield, has plenty of reasons to hate humanity, not simply for the exploitatively uncaring way in which they’ve treated him, but for what they took from him.
He is angry, he is sad, and possessed of wildly powerful chaos energy, able to cause Team Sonic (you would guess right if you think that Knuckles is not a huge fan of the collective moniker), and indeed G.U.N. and the world all kind of perilous trouble.
Cue a very serious, emotionally loaded battle to save the world, pretty much what you’d expect from a big, bold, epic, blockbustery commercial adaptation like Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
But while there’s lots of angst and bristling fury, one thing the franchise has always had in its highly amusing corner is a lot of humour.
Quite apart from Sonic who’s always quipping, well, almost all the time, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 sees the return of Dr Ivo Robotnik and the introduction of his hitherto unknown grandfather ———- SPOILER ALERT !!!!! ———- Professor Gerald Robotnik (both played with manic comic book villainy by Jim Carrey who’s in fine form) who join forces to make the Earth pay for a cataclysmically sad past trauma.
Well, the Professor’s at least.
It’s entirely possible that the grandfather is way more evil and troubled than his recently reacquired grandson but that is a thing best left to the viewing of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 which may have a fairly serious narrative driver in play but which is able to, like its predecessors, be as goofy as anything when it wants to be.
All of that hilarious meta self-referential humour comes courtesy of, it will not shock you to learn, Jim Carrey’s Robotnik who, with the help of Agent Stone (Lee Majdoub), has a bunch of scene-stealing moments throughout the film.
There is one montage, that will not anger the spoiler gods, where Ivo and Gerald are pictured doing cute and cosy family things like Ivo learning to ride a bike or getting ice creams after playing in the park.
It’s all technicolour retro familial warmth and loveliness, and Carrey executes it perfectly, investing the goofy montage with more than a little melancholy and raw vulnerability.
It’s a trademark of the actor but it also works in a film, and indeed a franchise, which may be all bombastic video game fun and end-of-the-world seriousness, complete with the gold rings and Master Emerald of the game itself, but which also comes with a tremendous amount of heart and some unexpected twists and turns, continuing its theme of love and inclusion trumping hate and exclusion to impressively escapist and ultimately heartwarming effect.
Yay! Christmas isn’t quite over when Sonic is involved …