Sonic 3 came to theaters on December 20th 2024 and was a big hit with fans. It manages to be faithful to the games while also putting it’s own spin on itss story.
The most agreed upon topic with fans is that the human characters are charming, fun, and enjoyable unlike past human characters. Tom (James Marsden) and Maddie (Tika Sumpter) are two human characters that are more then just ‘human characters’. They’re also parental figures to Sonic (Ben Schwartz), Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey), and Knuckles (Idris Elba).
The portrayal of Ivo Robotnik and Gerald Robotnik (both played by Jim Carrey) are also highly praised, being silly and fun while also having their serious moments.
Compared to past human characters in the franchise, the movie characters are charming and actually likeable. Past human characters were written in peculiar ways that many fans did not like.
The most loved human character is Agent Stone (Lee Majdoub). He, along with the other human characters, (excluding the Robotniks) are exclusive to the movies. Meaning that the did not come from the games. Many people loved Stone’s relationship with Ivo and hope to see Majdoub return to Stone in the next Sonic movie.
However the star of the movie was Shadow (Keanu Reeves). Shadow is a fan favorite among the fans. Shadow is a direct parallel to Sonic, often being mistaken for each other in the games.
Shadow’s character is handled fairly similar to his game counterpart with a few minor changes. The changes are small but still work for the movie, even if it strays from the game. The Sonic movies are not direct adaptations of the games, There are clearly some things that couldn’t change such as Shadow’s backstory but the story manages to be original.
Shadow is still a failed experiment that was put away for fifty years. Shadow still witnessed the death of his friend, Maria. Shadow is still the same angry Hedgehog from the games. None of the major components of him change. By all means, it’s accurate to the games.
The most enjoyable part was the final act of the movie, when Sonic and Shadow defeated all the robots sent out to attack them by Gerald Robotnik. While they were fighting off the robots the song “Live and Learn” played. “Live and Learn” is a song directly from the Sonic games and it was awesome to hear it in theaters.
The Sonic movie manages to put their own spin on the franchise while trying out new things. Seeing Amy and Metal Sonic in the post credits scene made me want to do backflips and cartwheels. Amy and Metal Sonic are vital to the Sonic games and it’s amazing to see that they’ll appear in the next Sonic movie.
The fourth Sonic movie is already in the works and is said to be out in 2027.
The movies do a phenomenal job at adapting the games and really something new to the franchise.
