Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024)
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This article may reveal major plot points, especially considering the game, film, episode, season, or series has either been released recently or not in specific countries yet. Suppose you do not wish to know vital information on media elements in a story. In that case, you may not wish to read beyond this warning: We hold no responsibility for any negative effects these facts may have on your enjoyment of said media should you continue. That's all. |
"You're a colorful bunch."
— Shadow
| ♥ | This article is dedicated to the Sonic Cinematic Universe versions of John Lennon (1940-1980) and George Harrison (1943-2001), of which Sonic mentioned in this movie in his line "John, Paul, George, the other one!", where they were part of a band named The Beatles with John Lennon as the leader and he played the guitar, George Harrison playing the guitar, the fictionalized version of Paul McCarthy playing the bass guitar, and the fictionalized version of Ringo Starr playing the drums, and the fictionalized version of Tom Petty (1950-2017). |
| Sonic the Hedgehog 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 "I can't believe I'm saying this... but we got another great movie."
— Sonic | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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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, Lee Majdoub, Tom Butler, Adam Pally, Shemar Moore, James Marsden, Tika Sumpter, and Idris Elba reprising 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. A fourth film named Sonic the Hedgehog 4 is in development and is set to be released in Spring of 2027.
Plot
In 1974, a meteorite was discovered containing an unknown being. Fifty years later, 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
- Like the previous two films, it stays faithful (in a good way) to its franchise in many ways and manages to be even more faithful than Sonic 2.
- Ivo Robotnik finally gets to wear his more iconic costume.
- Shadow is properly introduced, and he also maintains his backstory.
- 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 debits here.
- Incredible visual effects that are a big improvement over the previous films (which already had great visual effects), and manage to be even more colorful and detailed.
- 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 translates 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.
- Excellent soundtrack, especially Live and Learn from Sonic Adventure 2 which makes its debut in a Sonic cinematographic product, which fits this movie considering that Shadow appears and that this movie takes inspiration from Sonic Adventure 2.
- The returning characters are still just as well-written as they are in the past films, and the new characters are interesting:
- Sonic is the leader of Team Sonic, a team that Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles formed. You can tell that Sonic has gotten more mature this time, complete with him wanting to kill Shadow.
- Tails is the intelligent kid of Team Sonic, and as usual, he has his gadgets.
- Knuckles is still a likable and funny character, and thankfully, was not flanderized into a dumb muscle like he was in the games.
- Shadow is an excellent character, combined with his dark and troubled backstory of connecting with Maria and being locked away for fifty years.
- Maria Robotnik is a sweet child, all the made more horrifying and tragic because of her death.
- Surprisingly, Ivo Robotnik and Agent Stone get great character development as well. While Sonic fans and some moviegoers unfamiliar with Sonic may expect the two to betray the Sonic characters like in the last two films, here Robotnik and Stone genuinely have a change of heart and redeem themselves by preventing the Eclipse Cannon from destroying Earth.
- Excellent acting, with Keanu Reeves being the perfect choice for Shadow.
- Incredible action scenes such as Shadow's escape, the fight with Shadow in the beginning, and the fight between Super Sonic and Super Shadow.
- 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.
- 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.
- The scenes where Ivo Robotnik and Gerald fight each other, while they interrupt the fight with Sonic and Shadow, are quite hilarious.
- 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 gain.
- Like the previous two movies, the direction by Jeff Fowler is great.
- 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.
- Ivo Robotnik makes an awesome reference to the flop of the 2011 Green Lantern, where he said that he loved to hate that movie, which was likely done to mock it, especially since it was poorly received.
- The Live and Learn song actually appears in the movie during the scene where Sonic and Shadow become super versions of themselves while trying to stop Gerald. It also played during the introduction at one point albeit in a soft guitar version. This is used as some sort of recurring theme for Shadow in the movie.
- Sonic's meltdown is shocking for a family film after he witnesses Tom getting brutally beaten by Shadow. From attempting to use the Master Emerald despite Knuckles' warning (even the heated argument between Sonic and Knuckles was shocking enough) to Sonic even attempting to kill Shadow, this is where the movie goes to the point of no return. Eventually, however, Sonic calms down and realizes his faults.
- Like the first and second movies, there is not one, but two post-credits scenes for the fourth movie. The first mid-credits scene involves Sonic unintentionally running to New York City 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 at 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. Sonic then looks around at the Metal Sonics. As he thinks he's doomed, a mysterious pink light comes out of nowhere and defeats the Metal Sonic copies, and the mysterious creature appears on the Moon, it comes to the ground and takes down its cloth, and it's none other than Amy Rose. In the second post-credits scene, Shadow is revealed to have survived the Eclipse Cannon's destruction, possibly teasing his return for Sonic the Hedgehog 4.
- Overall, this film ultimately proved that video game movies are becoming great, even after the disaster that was Borderlands.
- The Biolizard makes a cameo appearance in a movie that Maria and Shadow are watching in Maria's room, as it is seen in a fictional movie that they are watching that parodies Godzilla.
- Speaking about that parody, it is rather hilarious and could make a great idea for a video about a Godzilla parody.
Unlived and Unlearned Qualities
- This film pretty much requires you to watch the previous films and Knuckles to understand what is going on.
- It also somewhat requires playing both Sonic Adventure 2 and Shadow the Hedgehog to understand what is going on because this film heavily takes inspiration from them in some scenes.
- 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.
- Shadow arrives on Earth on a meteorite, when in the games he was a creation from Gerald Robotnik.
- Despite the film taking elements from Sonic Adventure 2, the Biolizard doesn't appear and the Soap Shoes are absent.
- Maria never says ""Sayonara, Shadow the Hedgehog." to Shadow, which could make some fans disappointing.
- The pacing is a little too fast.
- The scene where Sonic lashes out at Knuckles and Tails was a bit mean-spirited, although it is somewhat justified as Shadow made him mad and injured Tom; the outright problem is that it doesn't excuse him stealing the Master Emerald from Wade Whipple and ditching his friends to battle Shadow, which is out-of-character for him.
- Like the first two movies, a few of the humor can be somewhat forced and over-the-top, such as the one infamous part where Super Sonic and Super Shadow are fighting and it's abruptly cut off by Ivo and Gerald fighting, which could ruin the emotional moments.
- For some reason, the film seems to have forgotten that Sonic called Tom his "Dad" in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, as Sonic does not once call Tom his Dad at all in the film, which is unfortunate, especially since it would have been nice for Sonic to call Tom Dad more in the film.
- It doesn't help that Tails and Knuckles don't bond that much at all in this film, since most of their screen time is sharing it with Sonic.
- Shadow never gets a resolution with Gerald, especially since Gerald manipulated his pain and used him and he doesn't even ask Eggman what happened to Gerald when he came back.
- The infamous scene where Tom has issues switching between different disguises during the heist, which drags on for too long, and while it is supposed to be a comedy scene, it feels more like a forced comedy than a funny one, and also it could somewhat serve as fillers.
- A bunch of people and Sonic the Hedgehog fans said that a few of Sonic's quips and one-liners were horrendous and unfunny, especially for people who think Sonic shouldn't say pop-culture quips.
- It's never revealed how Gerald is alive, though writer Jeff Fowler said he licked Shadow's quills and that's how it kept him alive for so many years.
- Anachronism: The song 99 Luftballons by Nena plays in one of Maria and Shadow's flashbacks, but the song wasn't released until 1983, while the flashback scenes take place in 1974, nine years before 1973.
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 58 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.
Despite being box office hits, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 has grossed $204.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $180.3 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $384.8 million. It's a little bit lower than prequel of this films.
Rumors/Future
While it hasn't been confirmed, Alyla Browne (Maria's actress), expressed interest in a Shadow the Hedgehog spin-off film[1]. In contrast, Idris Elba (Knuckles' voice actor) and Keanu Reeves (Shadow's voice actor) expressed interest in a Knuckles & Shadow spin-off with Idris Elba and Keanu Reeves reprising their voice roles as Knuckles and Shadow, respectively[2]. At the same time, Idris Elba also expressed interest in reprising his voice role as Knuckles in a potential Knuckles season 2[3], and outside of the unconfirmed films that some of the cast members want. Additionally, X leaker DanielRPK reported that in September 2024, Paramount plans a Team Chaotix spin-off[4], and he later reported in November of 2024, where X (formerly known as Twitter) leaker DanielRPK that Paramount has big plans for Silver the Hedgehog.[5]
Trivia
- While this is basically opinionated, the joke about John Lennon was omitted in later releases.
- 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.
- However, Mufasa: The Lion King grossed more money when Disney forced audiences to see it instead of Sonic 3, despite the latter being more profitable for theaters.
- Originally, this film was intended to be adding Amy and Rouge during in production process, but it was scrapped, probably due to runtime and budget constraints.
- Jim Carrey's older sister Rita Carrey (??? birth, ??? month, any day 1956-November 14, 2024), who was a radio show co-host at the The Peet & Reet Show, producer, musician, and public speaker, unfortunately died on November 14, 2024, and the age of 68 (her age of when she died was revealed by some news sites), and the reasons were not revealed publicly, and she was surrounded by her friends and family when she died, just one month and five days before the release of Jim Carrey's then-latest film, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, additionally Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was released five years after Jim Carrey's oldest brother, John Carrey, died from a rare blood condition called aplastic anemia, and the film was released five months and nine days before what would have been John Carrey's sixty-sixth birthday, while the movie was also released in the twenty-fifth anniversary of when Keanu Reeves' only daughter and his late wife Jennifer Syme' only daughter, Ava Archer Syme-Reeves, was stillborn and was born and died on December 24, 1999.
- Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was released one day after the forty-sixth birthday of writer Patrick Casey (better known as Pat Casey).
- Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was released four days after the forty-third birthday of Krysten Ritter (who plays Director Rockwell).
- Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was released in the same year, 2024, as Lee Majdoub (the actor of Agent Stone)'s other movie that came out in 2024, Get Fast, which Lee Majdoub, who plays Agent Stone, played Sly in Get Fast, which was also released one month and six days before Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was released on December 20, 2024.
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