Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024)

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"You're a colorful bunch."

— Shadow

Sonic the Hedgehog 3
"I can't believe I'm saying this... but we got another great movie." — Sonic
Genre: Action Adventure Comedy Science Fiction Fantasy Directed by: Jeff Fowler Produced by: Neal H. Moritz Toby Ascher Toru Nakahara Hitoshi Okuno Written by: Pat Casey Josh Miller John Whittington Based on: Sonic the Hedgehog by Sega Starring: James Marsden Ben Schwartz Tika Sumpter Natasha Rothwell Adam Pally Shemar Moore Colleen O'Shaughnessey Lee Majdoub Idris Elba Jim Carrey Keanu Reeves Cinematography: Brandon Trost Distributed by: Paramount Pictures Release date: December 20, 2024 Runtime: 110 minutes Country: United States Language: English Budget: $122 million Box office: $6.3 million Franchise: Sonic the Hedgehog Prequel: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Sonic the Hedgehog film franchise) Knuckles (Sonic the Hedgehog film franchise, spin-offs) A Very Sonic Christmas (Sonic the Hedgehog film franchise) Sequel: Sonic the Hedgehog 4 A rumored Shadow the Hedgehog spin-off movie (Sonic the Hedgehog film franchise, spin-offs)

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is a 2024 action-adventure comedy film based on the video game series published by Sega. It was directed by Jeff Fowler and written by Pat Casey, Josh Miller, and John Whittington, based on a story by Casey and Miller. Jim Carrey, Ben Schwartz, Colleen O'Shaughnessey, Natasha Rothwell, Shemar Moore, James Marsden, Tika Sumpter, and Idris Elba reprise their roles, with Krysten Ritter and Keanu Reeves joining the cast. In the film, Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles ally with Dr. Ivo Robotnik to defeat a new enemy, Shadow the Hedgehog.

Plot

In 1974, fifty years ago, a meteorite was discovered containing an unknown being. Now in 2024, the being, known as Shadow, escapes from his containment facility. Team Sonic is called in to stop him, but they soon realize they must forge an unlikely alliance with Dr. Robotnik and Agent Stone if they ever want to stop Shadow from destroying Earth.

Why It's Running It

1. Like the previous two films, it stays faithful to its franchise in many ways and manage to be even more faithful than Sonic 2.
   • Ivo Robotnik finally gets to wear his more iconic costume.
   • Shadow is properly introduced, and he maintains his backstory as well.
     • Adding onto Shadow, he gets to be Super Shadow.
   • The Chao makes an appearance in a restaurant.
   • Dr. Gerald Robotnik, who was dead in the source material of Sonic Adventure 2, makes an appearance once again by Jim Carrey.
   • The film's logo takes inspiration from Sonic Adventure 2.
   • Shadow drives a motorcycle and wields a gun like in Shadow in the Hedgehog.
   • "Live and Learn" from Sonic Adventure 2 makes a debut here.
2. Incredible visual effects that is a big improvement over the previous films (who already had great visuals effects), and manage to be even more colorful and detailled.
   • Like the previous two films, the opening logo once again has its Paramount stars replaced with rings from the Sonic franchise.
   • The CGI for the three Sonic characters remains top-notch as usual.
   • Shadow looks as epic as ever, and his design translate very well to the CGI style of design.
   • The end credits use an old-style 3D animation that looks perfect for a Sonic game transitioning to a 3D perspective.
3. Excellent soundtrack, especially Live and Learn from Sonic Adventure 2 who make it's debut in a Sonic cinematographic product, which fit this movie considering that Shadow appear and that this movie take inspiration from Sonic Adventure 2.
4. The returning characters are still just as likable and lovable as they are in the past films, and the new characters are interesting:
   • Sonic is the leader of Team Sonic, a team that was formed by Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. You can tell that Sonic has gotten more mature this time.
   • Tails is the intelligent kid of Team Sonic, and as usual, he has his gadgets.
   • Shadow is an excellent character, combined with his dark and troubled backstory of connecting with Maria and being locked away for fifty years.
   • Maddie is still a sweet loving mother to her "kids", Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles.
   • Surprisingly, Ivo Robotnik gets great character development as well. While Sonic fans and some moviegoers unfamiliar with Sonic may expect Ivo Robotnik to betray the Sonic characters like in the last two films, here Robotnik genuinely has a change of heart and redeems himself by preventing the Eclipse Cannon from destroying Earth.
5. Excellent acting, with Keanu Reeves being the perfect choice for Shadow.
6. Incredible action scenes such as Shadow's escape, the fight with Shadow in the beginning, and the fight between Super Sonic and Super Shadow.
7. The tone is much darker than the previous two films, with themes such as loss, pain, vengeance, and suffering. All perfect for a character like Shadow.
8. Even with its dark tone, the humor is still great, like a group of children referring to Tails as Detective Pikachu, Tom making a creepy puppet of himself, and Ivo Robotnik and Gerald Robotnik dancing in the lasers.
9. Ivo Robotnik's sacrifice is surprisingly heart-shattering, especially considering the amount of trouble he has pulled off in the previous films. He even treats Agent Stone like a genuine friend rather than a pawn for his own gain.
10. Like the previous two movies, the direction by Jeff Fowler is great.
11. Overall, this film ultimately proved that video game movies are becoming great, even after the disaster that was Borderlands.
12. The soundtrack is still great, like the first and second, is also amazing as it was composed by Tom Holkenborg (known as Junkie XL who also composed the first film's score and the second film's score), and there's also more music from the games this time. "Run It" by Jelly Roll is a great choice for the end credits, even though a lot of people said a country song was unfitting for a dark and gritty movie.
13. Like the first and second movies, there is not one, but two post-credits scene for the fourth movie. The first mid-credits scene involves Sonic unintentionally running to New York City and he looks around for Tails and Knuckles but doesn't see the two, and he sees a billboard that says "WELCOME TO NEW YORK.", and Sonic sees a metallic robot version of him, of which he comments that he got his costume wrong, and Metal Sonic proceeds to aim on Sonic, and it generates a huge blast in the forest of New York City, which Sonic manages to survive. Metal Sonic then copies himself into multiple copies of Metal Sonic, and Sonic then looks around at the Metal Sonics, and as he thinks he's doomed, a mysterious pink light comes out of nowhere and defeats the Metal Sonic copies, and the mysterious pink hedgehog appears on the Moon, and she comes to the ground, and takes down her cloth, and it is revealed to be Amy Rose, of which Sonic says to her "Who are you?", and the screen cuts to black and the end credits play. In the second post-credits scene, Shadow is revealed to have survived the Eclipse Canyon.

Unlived and Unlearned Qualities

1. This film pretty much requires you to watch the previous films and Knuckles to understand what is going on.
2. In a bit of a poor grasp of the source material:
   • MARIA DOES NOT GET SHOT. Yes, a GUN soldier shoots at her, but the shot misses and Maria dies in an explosion instead. This is probably done because a little girl getting shot was too inappropriate and violence for a family-friendly franchise like Sonic.
   • Shadow arrives to Earth on a meteorite, when in the games he was a creation from Gerald Robotnik.
3. The pacing is a little too fast.

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 87% of 69 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.8/10. The website's consensus reads: "With a double helping of Jim Carrey's antics and a quicksilver pace befitting its hero, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is the best entry in this amiable series yet." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 60 out of 100, based on 23 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.

Sonic fans were universally positive, with many calling this film the best in the series.

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Trivia

• This movie was released on the same day as Disney's Mufasa: The Lion King, and a lot of people said that they would go see Sonic the Hedgehog 3 instead of Mufasa: The Lion King, especially since they thought a sequel/prequel to an already bad film was unnecessary.
• Originally, this films will be adding Amy and Rouge during in production process, but it was scrapped, probably due to runtime and budget constraints. These two characters will be adding it in the sequel in 2027.

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