Sonic The Hedgehog 3

That being said I think it's important for me to acknowledge that this film does not offend me. Whether or not I think it's as amazing as its fans do (and I don't) the fact that other people took more from this film than I did is a good thing for the people who love it. And because the film doesn't offend me I can appreciate all the people who liked it. I don't need to channel my inner neckbeard to drone on about why y'all are wrong. The movie is inoffensive enough that I can acknowledge it might be simply that I'M the one who's wrong about it.

This is not going to be a super long review but there are some things I'll discuss.

Knuckles is my favorite character in these things and it sort of pisses me off how he was freaking sidelined on his own show. Idris Elba really does interesting choices because the writers give him interesting things to do. He's the best part of the movie for me.

I have to confess I don't have the same nice things to say about Keanu Reeves as Shadow. Reeves is a poor choice for a voice actor. I hear all these stories about how hard he "prepared for" this role and how "seriously" he took it, but the problem is Reeves does NOT have a good voice for voice-over. He's a great actor. Voice-over is more than acting skill. The voice itself should be memorable.

And honestly, the thing that bugs me is Reeves got the role because the studio reasoned he'd sell tickets. I don't necessarily agree little kids are gonna flock to a Sonic movie to hear Keanu Reeves. And celebrity voice casting is one of the most unfortunate things about modern animated films, and it's why, as a rule, I prefer TV animation to film.

I was annoyed it looked like we are about to be hit with a Robot Sonic cliffhanger, but Amy Rose shows up instead. I dislike tags in movies, but that made me smile.

If course Shadow is not dead (and frankly Robotnik probably isn't either) but I thought Robotnik's sacrifice was nice, and I especially like he dedicated it to this Stone cat, who I absolutely do not remember from the first two films at all, but is obviously important enough for that amount of character growth and callback. It's weird Maria actually seemed like a normal kid in the flashbacks despite being a Robotnik.

I probably mentioned before that I don't like Jim Carrey as Eggman / Robotnik, but I think he was tolerable at points with the dual role. Ivo will never live up to Maria, and I think that's an interesting level of pathos to a character who is otherwise pretty much a cretin.

Maybe the raves are for the same reason Transformers One was so well-received despite just being serviceable. There are a dearth of good videogame movies, and this the first really good Sonic one, so maybe it's understandable people are a little excited. I will not take that away from them. 3 1/2 stars.