Sonic 2 (Movie) Spoiler/Discussion Topic (Stay away if you don't want to be spoiled)

Saw it with the siblings. And you know what? I thought it was better than the first film in every way!

But! I still really didn't like it. Surprise!

To cut right to my biggest issue, Sonic being a child who has to learn he's too young and inexperienced to be a hero just yet and needs to grow up with friends and family was uhh. Not the Sonic I'm into. At all! In any way! But it's definitely the message you'd probably want to send to the really young children they wanted to watch the film. Same audience they aimed towards when doing all the scenes that lock in how relatably mischievous of a child Sonic is to his "parents" (eugh..), the dance scene that I couldn't watch without feeling at least a little embarrassed about. It's one thing to make a children's film, it's another to play it as hard as they did. Movie!Sonic is insufferable lmao.

The lore changes with the emeralds, locales etc I'm not a fan of at all either, but I at least understand how they got here. They had to work around the nonsense lore they established in the first film with Longclaw, the echidna vs owl story, multiple worlds and all that mess; and needed to change what the Master Emerald does (just contains the Chaos Emeralds I guess?) I guess just to streamline things for a less involved audience. Weird stuff, but I expected it. It's thrown at you very quickly too, with little room to stick besides "this is thing because it is", which makes it feel all the dumber. But alas. I liked the owls vs echidnas animated sequence at least, looked pretty decent. Longclaw doing the "help me Obi Wan Kenobi" bit verbatim though was soooo lazy. Just wow. lol

Knuckles is above and beyond the best handled character in this film; he feels the most like I would want out of the character; he's got a lot of funny bits and also is a well handled character for what they've done with him, and despite the changes to his lore I already mentioned disdain with, he's the only guy that really made me actively happy to see on screen.

Tails.. not so much. His "story" featured in S2's JP manual and the flashbacks in SA1 is there, but not shown in a natural way at all, rather it's just thrown at you with the idea that Tails was watching his favorite streamer Sonic and thought he should just go to Earth or something. Telling us his backstory and his justification for being there was told with such rapid fire exposition, I guess because they had no idea how to tell you that story as it were with their lore they developed for these films. Kinda shows how the setup plays to this movie's detriment! And then he dies for like over half of his presence in the movie, which was SO funny. Me and my siblings were giggling at watching him lay dead in the background while other stuff is going on in front of him. They really didn't know what to do with him for a chunk of it and said "and now he dies for a while". Just amazing.

Eggman is more of who he's supposed to be in this film than he was in the last one, for sure, but it's still just kinda Jim Carrey doing his gurning and silly one-liners. Nothing I dislike terribly much (I grew up on Carrey's films), but it's not my ideal Eggman either. Oh well, he's fun enough I guess. A lot of stuff that happens with him left me and my siblings wondering how that even works, though. Like how did Agent Stone and him have a plan set up for him getting his suit/eggmobile/robots? Or how did he control the Death Egg Robot without Chaos Energy powering it? A bunch of little things you have to just brush off and not think too hard about. Not particularly good writing, there, but it's whatever.

Now onto the worst part beyond the first. The humans play such a miniscule role in this film as far as plot impact, but despite that they are way more present than they have any right to be. It really feels by-design to intercut every 20 minutes of Sonic adventures with their interactions; almost as if they know parents who don't care are nodding off and feel like they need something to entertain them. The middle part of the film is by far the WORST offender of this, cutting away into a film about Sonic's.. surrogate father's... wife's... sister's... wedding. Why, dude. lmao The scene where Rachel and her fiancee-whatever make up and kiss had both of my siblings lean over to me and ask me why this was happening and what movie they were watching, it was hilarious seeing their confusion and disinterest.

There's also the issue with that whole sequence because while it introduces GUN (nice), it implies that GUN put together this sting because they knew the entire time that Sonic was gonna end up at her wedding somehow? I mean you could probably argue that they intended to have an agent marry her so they could just study Sonic further and keep an eye on his actions, but even if that was their intent (doesn't seem so because they don't say it), studying isn't the same as capturing him. Yet another scene where the plot is really unclear and flawed, and the movie challenges you to not think too hard about it.

The action scenes in this film are pretty decent at the very least. The Sonic and Knuckles fight in the temple was more exciting than I ever anticipated; movie!Sonic juggling Knuckles like that was uncharacteristically cool of him, lmao. The final sequence with the Death Egg Robot and Super Sonic wasn't as hype as it probably should've been, but I did like the robot strutting through the city, and the scene where he tries punching Super was pretty good. Tails and Knuckles also help take it down more than I expected them to, which isn't too bad.

Final thoughts:
This is a rough film! It definitely is relying on young, young children to sell it (of course) but I've never considered that a good excuse for Hollywood's often lazy film-making. Knuckles being a very charismatic fun character carries the film on his back like Atlas himself, and Jim!Eggman and the extremely small game references sprinkled around feel like fun little distractions to keep your mind off the stuff that doesn't work. But that's just it: it doesn't work in many ways. At times embarrassing, often times baffling, but pretty amusing. I enjoyed watching it with my family, mostly for the camaraderie in finding this film about a hedgehog we like to be (putting it mildly) very, very strange. 4/10

Shoutouts to the fans that got to work on it though, y'all did good on what you did and I'm happy for ya. The credits in particular were easily the best part of the movie.

Anyways I can't wait for Shadow to bust this pansy-ass rendition of Sonic to pieces. Just murder the little pop-culture-blastin' bastard before he even gets a sentence in. Movie 3 HYYYPE LETS GO

 

I watched the movie a week ago, for the most part I think it's the best a direct sequel could have been.
Everything I liked about the first movie was improved on, and things I disliked about it aren't as egregious (i.e. the product placement).

Primarily just excited for Movie Shadow, I hope his action scenes absolutely kill the ones in this movie.

 

Honestly it's probably the best quality sequel ever for a kids movie. Like how many (kids movie) sequels are better than the original? Shrek 2, Toy Story 2? That might be it. The fact that it's better at all is amazing.

 

I don't think being better than the first Sonic film was a terribly difficult task in any way, but I guess an improvement is an improvement.

 

I'm just saying objectively as far as movies go. Sequels are rarely better than the original and that's doubly true of children's movies.

 

I think in my case it's more of seeing the traits of SA1 and SA2 Knuckles in him (mind you, these being the only 3D Sonic games I've played more than once), and them making it into a character that feels a bit more coherent, and/or doing more with it. His fight in SA1 with Sonic is 100% contrived but in the movie he has a clearly enumerated, understandable reason to start trying to kick his ass.

Also, putting the extinction of the Echidna tribe as taking place during his life makes...basically everything more understandable (being The Angry Sidekick, having a beef with Sonic, wanting to claim/guard the Master Emerald), especially everything involving him and the Master Emerald. Yeah sure him standing around a ruined shrine all day in SA1 is a great S3&K callback but it doesn't make a whole lot of actual sense nor helps make him very compelling? At least in S3&K the implication is that he spends his time running around Angel Island and knows it like the back of his hand, or naps with his little animal friends. And not to mention that having that kind of backstory adds an undercurrent of stakes? You get that he's the angry type who would also be pretty easily used by someone more savvy than him because he is basically traumatized, as opposed to being very naive/inexperienced (S3K) or extremely dumb (SA1).

His voice acting also sells it more too. I liked the english voice cast for the Sonic Adventure titles but I will never, ever claim that they got good direction, and of the ones in SA1 especially I think Knuckles is probably the one that suffers most from it outside...Big (whose entire concept and existence is ill-advised in every way imaginable).

 

Saw it, really enjoyed it. Definitely some pacing wobbles with the Siberia sequence, which managed to feel too long while also somehow making Sonic and Tails bonding as friends happen too quickly. The wedding felt largely disconnected from the rest of it for a good while - however the payoff to that with the comedy "everyone's a GUN agent" reveal made me chuckle enough that I thought it was worth it.

Not sure whether Jim Carrey's just turned the ham up a notch or legitimately gone insane, but he's still very entertaining to watch either way - opening the film with an extended Robotnik sequence shows they knew what was popular about the first film for sure.

Love that the filmmakers have gone all-in on the accepted fanon that Stone has an unrequited love for Robotnik - having rewatched the first film it's definitely not in the text there, but it makes his character much more fun and interesting.

Lore-wise I liked that they took inspiration from the games but weren't afraid to do something different with it and/or subvert expectations. Knuckles is initially hunting the Master Emerald rather than guarding it; Tails has idolised Sonic from afar for a while rather than meeting him in a chance encounter. Also, the Echidna/Owl conflict built well off the slightly random cameo the echidnas were given in the first film.

Loved the unexpected live-action realisation of Labyrinth Zone - instantly recognisable as the location from the games, and making the ambiguous bird-like carvings into Owls to work with the lore they're building was a nice touch.

Shadow as the tease was a surprise - I'd been expecting a loose Sonic Adventure adaptation next as I was convinced the Knuckles series would be a backdoor introduction to story elements involving Tikal and the Echidnas. Now that I know Sonic Adventure 2 is instead forming the basis, I'm convinced the Knuckles series will instead build him a reputation as a treasure hunter and introduce Rouge to the movieverse. I find it interesting that despite the large differences in situation in the movie canon they're sticking with Project Shadow originating from 50 years ago - this suggests elements such as Professor Gerald Robotnik may also end up in the movie version. Hopefully Jim Carrey does return for the third, as it'd feel so weird doing a story with roots in Robotnik's family history without Robotnik himself along for the ride...!

Not perfect, but a great fun watch that was a huge leap forward from the original, and definitely worth picking up for a rewatch once it releases on Blu-ray. To quote the friend I saw it with - a Sonic fan from a young age through the Mega Drive to Dreamcast eras - "Well, that pissed all over the first film, didn't it?". We're both looking forward to the third...! = )

 

He didn't want to use its power. Robotnik did.

 

Oh, really? I need to see it again. I may just be conflating his desire to find it with the previous echidnas’ use of it.

 

Sonic and Tails were worried that Knuckles would use it because of the emeralds' history. But Knuckles in his dialogue only ever talks about reclaiming it, and how when he gets it back that balance will be restored. His mission was just to get it back from the owls.

 

Gotcha. Yeah, after the last message I tried to go through the dialogue I could recall in my head and realized Knuckles himself never mentioned anything beyond retrieving it. I guess the other characters interpreting his goal as such is just what stuck with me after two weeks.

 

I'm already dying for this to be released out of theaters so I can rewatch a bunch of scenes. In particular, I absolutely love everything Eggman gets to do as soon as he steps up on that altar with the Master Emerald. I said earlier that I was happy that they were letting him be a real supervillain in this movie, and they delivered that in spades.

Also, something that I find very novel is that this movie essentially takes Eggman's experience in the first movie to believably transition his behavior into something more maniacal, unhinged, and obsessed. As a result (and given what he gets to do in this one), he ends up feeling more like his game counterpart. I guess I'm just surprised at how elegantly it works out.

 

No. Not even close.

 

Saw it last weekend, of course I loved it, especially the hype moments towards the end like "Oh they're not gonna introduce Super Sonic..." and then "Oh they're not gonna introduce Shadow!!!". Reminded me of the Tails reveal at the end of the 1st movie. Made me wanna scream in delight (but we don't do that in british cinemas so I didn't) Between this and all the other stuff, I'm hopeful that the cancer of 2010-2016 has been wholly chemo'd out.

Now we're gonna spend then next 2 years wondering how that story's gonna play out without child murder or sudden alien invasion.

Only question I had lingering was what happened to the echidnas. The last we saw of them was Longclaw holding them off to save Sonic, so did she wipe them all out in some heroic last stand before succumbing to her own wounds?

 

They weren't expecting her to have a machine gun under her wings.

Actually, now that you mention it that was something that I didn't even think about. Am I misremembering that Longclaw was the last of the owls?

Maybe after Sonic escaped other owls came to the rescue and there was a final showndown between the owls and echidnas.

 

From the first movie's novelization:

I think it's a little safe to say that at least the "last of her kind" part would stick, and Sonic is her unconventional successor.

 

Dang, I guess I wasn't far off from her having machine guns to wipe out the echidnas.

 

Between the map hologram and the fact she apparently wiped out the last surviving echidnae when it was tens against one, I imagine Longclaw probably has some potent magical abilities. It'd make sense, given it was owls specifically that opposed the echidnae and I don't see how they could've done it when the echidnae already had the Master Emerald. Hell, maybe the owls were even responsible for the warp rings in the movie setting that then became proliferated as a common tool.

 

for the sake of the plot of Sonic 2, it was probably a good choice to end longclaw there, but I do think the original opening where she raised a younger Sonic on earth until dying of sickness some time before the events of the movie worked better for that movie in a lot of ways. Gave her a more appreciable presence rather than keeping her only there to move plot events along.

 

We dont know who / what killed the last of the echidnas. I mean, maybe it was Longclaw...

...

But if they wanted to bring Chaos in the sequel and do a mix of the 2 adventure games together (or in this knuckles spinoff that's been touted), revealing who actually killed Knuckles lost family when Sonic escaped would not be a bad twist.