A Tale of Two (Terrible) Carreys | Sonic 3 (2024) Movie Review
Maybe you had to see the first two? 🤔
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This franchise has grossed more than $1.8B at the box office. Anecdotally, working shifts at AMC, kids and their families were turning out in droves for Sonic 3, and I myself saw the movie in a pretty crowded theatre that was roughly a third (maybe more) kids.
The cartoon characters were thoroughly charming, and I can see why this franchise is popular. But holy shit, is this movie not good.
The first fifteen minutes or so were somewhat hurt by a mentally-unwell solo man sitting quietly in his seat, swearing LOUDLY at everybody nearby, and first theatre managers, then a police officer and social worker had to be hailed to deal with him, and he dropped about forty f-bombs, a handful of c-bombs and some real heavy n-bombs, all in a pretty short window of time.
However, once the man had been removed (violence-free, though it was a near thing), and I had to focus entirely on Sonic 3, I was struck by how bad everything Jim Carrey was doing was.
Look, it’s happened before. I’d argue the 1994 film The Mask was predicated on an overreliance of Jim Carrey shenanigans. Just point the camera at him and roll film; he’s got the magic touch.
He doesn’t. The Mask is a baffling cult-classic favorite (I think it sucks, but your mileage may vary; we can both agree on the fact that it’s a LOT of Jim Carrey, either way), but I doubt Sonic 3 will find the same favor, except maybe undeservedly as a throw-in to what I presume were two decent first films.
I must confess, I intended to see Sonic 1 and 2 (and still yet may) before seeing Sonic 3, and just… didn’t. So I came into this with no real context, other than having played the first three games (and especially Sonic and Knuckles, the Sega Genesis game/add-on that was coincidentally released the same year as The Mask), and to be honest, though I was vaguely familiar with Knuckles as a character, I’ve never encountered or heard of Shadow or Amy Rose. Sorry. Nerd credentials revoked, I presume.
I know one of the hedgehogs is famous for using guns, but Shadow didn’t pick up a weapon in this film that I saw (though he does inexplicably drive a motorbike, which… it can’t possibly be as fast as he is, right? isn’t that the whole conceit?), and Amy Rose — who appears in a mid-credits sequence — doesn’t speak.
Shadow does speak, quite a bit, actually, and forgive me, but none of it works for me.
Keanu Reeves is, by all accounts, a delightful human being and one of our national treasures. This is not even a criticism of him. But why was he cast in this film?
Upon reading some press coverage, it seems as though some ties his John Wick character might have inspired the first look-in, but… I think Reeves works as John Wick, doesn’t work as Shadow.
Firstly, I never forgot for a second it was Keanu Reeves. I also never forgot for a second that Sonic speaks with Ben Schwartz’s voice, but while Schwartz is arguably perfect as/for Sonic, Reeves just isn’t a great foil for him.
He lacks the gravitas of someone who could be a real contrast to Sonic (like I imagine Knuckles probably was in the second film).
As far as the other characters? Ben Schwartz is great as Sonic. Idris Elba is pretty funny as Knuckles. Colleen O’Shaughnessey is a serviceable Tails (I suspect Tails had more to do in the prior film). All three of them have ‘chemistry,’ (if you want to call it that) and work onscreen. I would argue this maybe should have been an animated series or franchise.
Because my god, we cut back to live-action Jim Carrey (playing dual roles as Ivo Robotnik, whom we presumably know well from the prior two films, and newcomer Gerald Robotnik, a Cold-War era relic who is a newcomer to this series and Ivo’s long-lost grandfather), and literally nothing he is doing works or is funny or engaging or anything but severely, profoundly cringe to watch.
I had a neat point of comparison in my theatre. Granted, the kids might have been lightly traumatized by a full-grown adult threatening to assault a police officer and theatre managers in front of them, but it didn’t stop them from laughing at Sonic and Knuckles’ antics.
Not one child laughed one time at anything Jim Carrey did, as either Ivo or Gerald Robotnik. Nor, for that matter, did anyone else.
The movie is a pretty breezy 110 minutes, but every second that Jim Carrey is onscreen — often twice at once — somehow still feels like an eternity.
I would argue that Ben Schwartz, while charming and delightful, doesn’t do enough to save this movie for me. Maybe if I’d come in with some goodwill built up from the first or first two movies, but I came in cold, and this movie left me cold.
Now, the movie legitimately starts going off the rails. James Marsden at one point transforms via hologram technology into his black brother-in-law, and it gets uncomfortable IMMEDIATELY.
He asks his wife if he looks more jacked or sexy to her now. To her credit, I think she rolls her eyes, but somebody wrote that. On porpoise.
Yeah, yeah, I’m being pretty unforgiving with a kids’ movie, but just beacuse it’s aimed at children doesn’t mean it has to be, or should be, terrible. This is terrible.
But not so bad as to be enjoyable, so Sonic 3 is the quintessential Just a Movie.
