Sonic The Hedgehog 3 Review: The Blue Blur Is Bigger, Bolder, And Better Than Ever

For over 30 years, Sonic the Hedgehog has been the "always a bridesmaid, never the bride" of the video game industry. Nintendo and Super Mario won the video game wars, but SEGA and Sonic fans refused to go down without a fight. Sure, neither "Sonic the Hedgehog" nor "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" could match the box office success of "The Super Mario Bros. Movie," but "Sonic the Hedgehog 3" continues a winning streak for The Blue Blur, and kicks the cinematic series into high gear by reaching its highest heights in the third go-around and delivering one of the best video game movies a fan could want.

The first "Sonic" movie treated its video game lore as glorified Easter eggs and while "Sonic 2" is based on "Sonic & Knuckles" with a bit of "Sonic 3 & Knuckles" thrown in for fun, there was still a reliance on the human characters to move the story along. "Sonic 3" minimizes the humans as much as possible without writing them out completely, because it's based on the first "Sonic" game to include in-depth lore. The outcome is a "Sonic" movie that feels like everything fans love about the games distilled into a film that's fast, flashy, a hell of a lot of fun, and boasts an absolute banger of a soundtrack.

This is a Team Sonic movie through and through, and the entry that has finally perfected the balancing act of appealing to the audiences who grew up on the original games and are now firmly in adulthood, and the very young children who will be showing up in droves. Alexa, play "Live and Learn" by Crush 40 because "Sonic the Hedgehog 3" is bigger, bolder, and better than ever.

Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are adjusting to their new lives as a team when the Guardian Units of Nations (G.U.N.) enlists them to help defeat a mysterious new foe, Shadow the Hedgehog, who has escaped after 50 years of being kept under close watch due to his overwhelming power. Shadow may look like Sonic and have seemingly similar powers, but this brooding beast is motivated by a moral compass smashed by pain and betrayal. Fortunately for us, unleashing all of that anger results in live-action anime fight sequences and chase scenes, right down to a stellar "Akira" slide up a building (CHAOS CONTROL!) while shooting into the sky.

Shadow is the perfect antithesis to Sonic (he's his Shadow, after all), and getting to understand why The Ultimate Lifeform is still so broken despite being stronger, faster, and more powerful than Sonic provides a fantastic outlet for young viewers to understand that a majority of the time, villains aren't born, they're made. Keanu Reeves fully commits to the internal agony of Shadow's turmoil, and his moments reminiscing about the death of his best friend Maria are sincerely moving. Casting one of the coolest actors on the planet to voice one of the greatest anti-heroes in video game history handsomely paid off.

The animation of Team Sonic and Shadow is electrifying to watch, and it shouldn't be this refreshing to see a film unafraid of making colors pop off the screen, but "Sonic 3" will earn multiple theater rewatches out of me simply so I can be nourished by vibrancy. Some detractors may say that it's stupid for Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Shadow to be able to breathe in space, and to that, I say ... you're a nerd. They're aliens, quiet the logic-demanding know-it-all in your head and learn a lesson about why letting pain control you and turn you into a hate-fueled buzzkill is no way to live.

If "Sonic the Hedgehog" films are meant to capture the nostalgia of the 1990s, one of the best ways it does so is by letting Jim Carrey remind us all why there's never been anyone like him. At 62 years old, Carrey plays double duty in a dual role — as Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik and his own grandfather Professor Gerald Robotnik — and the rubber-faced king of physical comedy is still untouchable. There is a shockingly moving throughline with his character that completely caught me off-guard but he's also the source of the most self-referential humor, with one-liners meant to keep the adults in the room humble.

Yes, "Sonic 3" is great at regressing the viewer to whatever age they were when they were begging their older sibling to give them a turn on the controller, but injects jokes "for the parents" to serve as a reminder that this is still a movie for kids, and we are old. A well-placed reference to hate-watching 2011's "The Green Lantern" earned huge laughs in the theater, and while it would be easy to write off the "above the heads of children" references as eye-roll inducing or worse, cringe, the jokes are perfect because they're jokes for adults watching a "Sonic the Hedgehog" movie, we are cringe, and that's okay!

One minute I'm bouncing in my seat with glee because the Chao Garden minigames from "Sonic Adventure" and "Sonic Adventure 2" are incorporated into the film's world as an entertainment experience cafe in Tokyo complete with people in mascot costumes, and the next I'm hearing jokes that only make sense to people with a "19" at the start of their birth year on their driver's licenses. "Sonic 3" doesn't want the adults at home to refuse to grow up or feel ashamed that they still love Sonic after all these years, but it does want us to be honest about it.

This is best reflected by the arc of Agent Stone, once again played brilliantly by Lee Majdoub. He provides the perfect balance to Carrey's antics and delivers a quietly touching performance as his feelings of being underappreciated after three movies finally boil over. Loving someone (or something, perhaps a beloved IP) that hasn't focused on us for years can be hard, but it doesn't make that love worth any less.

The world of "Sonic" is vast (albeit convoluted) and filled with so many delightful characters we've yet to see (I will not rest until I get my femme fatale, Rouge the Bat!), that Paramount has enough material for as many movies as they want. And as much as I adore James Marsden, Tika Sumpter, Natasha Rothwell, Shemar Moore, and Adam Pally (go watch the "Knuckles" show on Paramount+, it rules), the more the series leans into the adventures of Team Sonic, the better the movies will be. But we can't lose them altogether, no, because they are all essential members of this family, and everyone plays an important role. But after three movies, Ben Schwartz, Idris Elba, and Colleen O'Shaughnessey have made these characters their own (for the record, O'Shaughnessy already made Tails her baby boy), and reuniting with this team every few years feels like a family reunion.

After Shadow whips out the "Akira" slide, Sonic playfully calls him "Tokyo Drift" and that's when it hit me — the "Sonic the Hedgehog" film series is turning into the "Fast and the Furious" franchise, but for children. The first movie was a bit more grounded compared to where the series would go, the second film introduces a rough-around-the-edges character that would become essential to the series (Roman Pearce/Knuckles), and the third is where things really get interesting and showcase the potential brilliance of embracing chaos, pushing the envelope of reality, and never wavering from its core message of found family. As far as I'm concerned, Sonic is fast and Shadow is furious so this franchise deserves to continue for at least as long as that one.

And Sonic made it to space in under three movies. Your move, Vin Diesel.

/Film Rating: 7.5 out of 10

"Sonic the Hedgehog 3" opens in theaters on December 20, 2024.