Sonic the Hedgehog 3 opens in theaters Friday, December 20.
Whatever sum Paramount Pictures paid to coax Jim Carrey out of supposed retirement, it was worth every penny. The rubber-limbed funnyman has been quite upfront about his financial motives for playing Dr. Robotnik, the megalomaniacal mad scientist with the exaggerated paint-brush mustache, the stockpile of deadly electronics, and the hammy grudge against speedy space mammals. But just because this is a paycheck gig for Carrey doesn’t mean he phones it in. Quite to the contrary, the man behind The Mask treats his recurring role as the capering, bloviating nemesis of Sonic the Hedgehog as license to mug like he hasn’t since the heyday of the Genesis. Every time the camera finds Carrey in the Sonic movies, he’s doing some tireless schtick – dancing with dorky aplomb, scrunching his face into an expression no other human has ever thought to make, tossing off Grinchian insult-asides to nobody.
In Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Carrey has finally found a scene partner who can match his freak. It’s… Jim Carrey. One hook of this latest sequel is that it casts the actor in a dual role, allowing him to play both a returning Robotnik and his distant, estranged relative. Watching the comedy legend in these movies already felt like witnessing a one man show crammed into the margins of an expensive all-ages comedy (which is more true than not when half the other characters on screen are digitally generated using a green screen). But there are stretches in Sonic 3 where it really is just Carrey up there, acting out both sides of a lunatic family reunion. And as it turns out, two of him are better than one.
Up until now, Carrey’s haughty take on the eggman wasn’t just the highlight but also the saving grace of these video-game adaptations. The first Sonic the Hedgehog was curiously popular for such a poky, nattering chore of a family film. Why, you had to wonder, did diehards warm to a movie that plucked their favorite blue blur out of a 16-bit kingdom of speed and color in favor of a drab buddy comedy with James Marsden? Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was a minor improvement, mostly by virtue of featuring fewer scenes of Sega’s resident speed demon planted in the passenger seat of an ambling automobile, but it still leaned heavily on hacky pop-culture references and filler subplots for the wholesome human characters. Thankfully, third time is the charm for the franchise, which finally hits its stride with a more fleet adventure for Team Sonic.
Besides the bug-eyed Robotnik, the people in these movies don’t hold much interest. Part three further minimizes the screen time of the ’hog’s adoptive parents, token townies Tom (Marsden) and Maddie (Tika Sumpter), even as the cast list expands to include cameo-length parts for Krysten Ritter, a Lonely Islander, and Bob from Mad Men. With fewer destination weddings and heart-to-hearts about Tom’s career aspirations on the docket, the script by Pat Casey, Josh Miller, and John Whittington can keep the focus trained on our colorful alien menagerie: plucky, wisecracking hedgehog Sonic (Ben Schwartz); brightly adolescent flying fox Tails (Colleen O'Shaughnessey); and irony-immune echidna Knuckles (Idris Elba, whose straight-faced bruiser routine owes a clear debt of vocal and temperamental influence to Drax the Destroyer).
The plot revolves around the introduction of fan favorite Shadow, who’s like an angsty mirror image of Sonic: a brooding antihero hedgehog (it feels a little silly typing those words) who escapes from years of government containment, electricity in his eyes and revenge against humanity on his brain. Voiced, in his usual gruff Zen monotone, by Keanu Reeves, the character has a tortured backstory; returning director Jeff Fowler lays it out through soapy flashbacks that supply Shadow with a formative, motivating, even vaguely Wickian loss. If that seems like an overly serious direction for a Sonic the Hedgehog movie to take (since when did that spiky-haired, finger-wagging mascot have to deliver a monologue about grief and revenge?), trust that a little melodrama is preferable to the trend-chasing flossing jokes that marked his big-screen debut.
Speaking of which, this third movie inches further away from the unsolicited Hop redux of the original and closer to the geeky adventure plotting of a Saturday morning cartoon – a much better fit for the character, and not just because Sonic and friends have raced across that landscape before. Seeing the little guy really run, as in a pleasingly animated early chase down the streets and up the skyscrapers of Tokyo, is a reminder that kinetic eye candy is what defines the best Sonic games. Part three also has more conceptual imagination than its predecessors: It lightly riffs on Moonraker and Mission: Impossible, kaiju movies and anime. The dialogue is a less heartening mix of quips, life lessons, and breathy declarations of conflict like “This. Ends. Now.”
At its current rate of unlikely improvement, the Sonic series should turn out a Toy Story 2-grade masterpiece in, oh, maybe five years. For now, it’s nice to report that these movies are finding their footing as kid-courting blockbusters that won’t totally insult kids’ intelligence or leave their parents yearning for the fastest exit possible. If there’s a common ground to unite the demographics, it’s probably a shared appreciation for the film’s comic ringer, who’s as much a cartoon as our wide-eyed and – per internet demand – dentally appealing hero. The star’s one-man buddy comedy is what you could call a case of successful sequel arithmetic: Double the Carrey, double the fun.
