Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024), is the third movie in the Sonic franchise that introduces Keanu Reeves as Shadow the Hedgehog and Jim Carrey who returns and is double-casted as Doctor Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik and the new character, Gerald Robotnik. After the release of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022), Jim Carrey announced that he would be retiring from acting and would not come out unless “the angels bring some sort of script that is written in gold ink,” referring to the script for Sonic 3. Sonic 3 takes elements from the video games: “Sonic Adventure 2” (2001) and “Shadow the Hedgehog” (2005) and brings them together onto the big screen.
The movie sets its premise on a vengeful Shadow who is released from a holding facility after 50 years in Tokyo, Japan by a mysterious hacker. Sonic struggles to work as a team with Tails and Knuckles throughout the movie as they join forces to stop Dr. Robotnik and Shadow. Sonic has to uncover the truth about Shadow’s origins and his connection to the chaos emeralds in order to save the fate of the world.
While watching the movie, I noticed that the pacing in the beginning of the movie felt off, but later it fixed itself. Shadow brings a balance to Sonic’s comedic nature and helps establish the serious scenes of the movie. However, I think slowing down the emotional scenes would help the story have much more of an impact and allow for the audience to grieve.
Without a shadow of a doubt, Sonic 3 is the best movie out of the live action Sonic trilogy, and a great loose movie adaptation to “Sonic Adventure 2,” that captures everything that made the game beloved by fans. Sonic the Hedgehog 4 has already been announced to release in 2027, and I can not wait to see it when it comes out.
