Movie Thoughts: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022)

• Released: March 27, 2022
  
• Directed by: Jeff Fowler
• Running time: 2h 2min
• Rating 3/5

Synopsis

Sonic returns in this new adventure as he has to put a stop to Dr. Robotnik once again.

My Thoughts

Just as a reminder in case you haven't seen my review of the first Sonic movie, I have no prior connection to the Sonic brand at all so some references to the games and such probably went over my head. 

Overall I think this was an okay sequel. The first movie I surprisingly liked quite a bit (despite my general distaste for this CGI-creature-in-live-action movie trope). It was funny, it had heart, the characters were okay.

This movie is also decent...but I'd be lying if I said I was as attached to it as I was the first movie. Whereas that one got a solid three and a half star rating from me, this one just gets a three. It's not bad, it just didn't hook me as much.

The visuals of this movie are very appealing, I'll give it that. Similarly to the first film everything looks great and I like the designs of new characters like Knuckles and Tails. The animation was also good and so was the blending of the live-action and the CGI elements.

The characters are also still fine but I just wasn't super into them this movie. Their arcs were pretty predictable and maybe it's because I never played the games, but I just didn't form that much of an attachment to the newcomers like Tails and Knuckles. I do like Knuckles the most out of all the characters this movie, but still I'm not super into his character or anything. They're just fine, mostly, but don't really break new ground or anything.

Also I am still very distracted by the fact that these movies insist Sonic is a child (around thirteen I recall the first movie called him), yet his voice and design just makes him look way more like an older teenager/young-adult. This was a problem I had in the first movie and it still persists here. 

Another thing that put me off from the movie was the climax, where the team has to fight a giant kaiju-sized Dr. Robotnik robot. If you've read my earlier posts you might recall me saying this: this is just personally a trope I cannot stand. Anytime there's a climax where a giant version of the villain has to be fought, whether it's a clone or actual growth or a robot version or whatnot, I just mentally check out. I always just find these types of climaxes way too hard to take seriously, especially when they're meant to be (like in The Legend of Korra, for example). It might also be why I generally don't have much attachment to the kaiju-genre of movies at all. I just can't take media with this type of scene seriously most of the time.

So overall a fine movie and I've seen it get very positive reviews, so that's nice. I just personally didn't connect with it much at all.