Speedy ‘Sonic’ is an entertaining ride

Posted on February 21, 2020

By MARK VIOLA

While the early Nintendo video game consoles had Mario and Donkey Kong, the name that will always be connected to the Sega consoles is Sonic the Hedgehog.

From his very first game in 1991, the blue hedgehog has been defined by his incredible speed and his penchant for collecting gold rings. The games would usually put Sonic against the evil Dr. Ivo Robotnik, who was after chaos gems and liked to trap woodland creatures inside his robotic creations.

Film adaptations of video games are notorious for being mostly terrible, although I can no longer say there hasn’t been any good adaptations after last year’s “Detective Pikachu.”

Now, we finally have a “Sonic the Hedgehog” movie, which pretty much throws out everything about the games except Sonic being a blue hedgehog who runs fast and Dr. Robotnik being a robot-obsessed scientist.

Despite all of this, somehow the film is actually pretty entertaining, thanks mostly to a lean runtime that ensures the movie doesn’t overstay its welcome and a manic performance from Jim Carrey (“Ace Ventura: Pet Detective”) as Robotnik. Now, to be sure, this is not a great movie, but as long as you’re not a Sonic purist who is going to object to the massive changes made to the game’s story, I think you can have a good time with this. Believe me, I’m as surprised as you are.

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