Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Movie Review - A Delightful Change-up

I didn't expect much from Sonic the Hedgehog 3. The first movie was a nice little diversion from COVID, but the sequel was quite irritating--and with the same director and writers back for another go-around, I figured we were in for another round of "more of the same." Fortunately for all of us, I was wrong: The threequel successfully reins in the pop culture references and Jim Carrey's wackiness just enough, while also giving us a serious villain for the first time with Keanu Reeves's Shadow, and the result is that Sonic the Hedgehog 3 works better for audiences of all ages than its predecessors, which were more squarely aimed at children.

Sonic 3 picks up some time after the last movie, and the Wachowskis have adopted Tails and Knuckles along with Sonic--they've got a nice little family unit going. Robotnik, meanwhile, is very depressed, just hanging out in his crab mech binge-eating snacks and binge-watching telenovelas. In other words, all is well. At least until an unknown person manages to free the mysterious Shadow the Hedgehog from stasis, letting him loose to pursue revenge for something that happened long ago and putting him into conflict with Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles.

That unknown person was, it turns out, another Dr. Robotnik--grandpa to the one we know (but still played by Jim Carrey). Robotnik Sr. and Shadow are allies, having shared a deep trauma decades earlier that is driving them both to extreme lengths for revenge. The younger Robotnik, the one who was a bad guy in the other two movies, serves as a wild card, because he wants to team up with his grandad but has a pretty different ultimate goal.

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