The Brilliant Thing the ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ Movie Did
I love the Sonic the Hedgehog movie. The sequel is whatever—it’s not terrible, but I have issues with it. The first film though, I’m all about. It’s certainly one of the best video game adaptations, and if I were to pinpoint exactly why, it all comes down to one simple, yet ingenious aspect which I will be discussing here today, as for some reason I’ve never heard anyone bring it up besides me.
A common trait of many cartoonish (or literally cartoon) kids entertainment protagonists of the 80s and 90s is a sort of wisecracking snark, often steeped in rapid-fire pop culture references. Historically, this has always been an arbitrary aspect of their personality—‘they’re just like that’! As such, it’s something that, even if entertaining occasionally, never fully lands except for on its least-thinking audience members—to everyone else, it just seems random and obligatory, the likely result of a demand from a studio exec greedy to solidify the character’s ‘appeal’. ‘Takes-you-out-of-the-movie be damned—let’s sell some merchandise!’ It’s distracting by how unreal it is as far as behavior, its only analogue in the real world being corny people no one likes who cannot read a room and are always ‘on’—our stomach can’t help but turn from being suddenly faced with someone like that on screen, like they showed up to a party we thought everyone had agreed not to tell them about.
The Sonic the Hedgehog movie, stunningly, finds a way to make that type of character work though, injecting pathos and believability no one would have ever thought possible. Special attention is paid early on in the story to show Sonic as not a mere marketing department wet dream, but the plausible and natural result of abject loneliness, with pop culture as one’s only friend or escape. Much like the classic ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’, it gives us someone annoying, but it doesn’t stop there—it digs deeper and shows us the reason for the annoyingness, the journey that led to it. The net result is that we can’t help but feel empathy for someone we’d typically seethe over having to be around. We become more understanding as human beings, potentially—more able to see soul in each and everyone.
The filmmakers of Sonic the Hedgehog didn’t have to do this extra work—no movie that’s going to make a boatload of cash anyway does. The goal for these films is traditionally to put asses in seats, and nothing more—while the audience is disappointed, you’re on the next train out of town, having taken their money and ran. Instead, they put real time and effort into the character, and the movie is significantly enhanced by it, becoming something that will stand the test of time rather than mere box office ephemera. If you haven’t seen Sonic the Hedgehog yet, I highly recommend it—it’s an admirable piece of entertainment.
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