Is This the Best Game Franchise Turned Into a Movie?
Sonic The Hedgehog is regarded as one of the best SEGA video game series. With fun gameplay and interesting genres, this game made a boom in the video game market. This game that was loved and well-received by the video game community was first released on June 23, 1991, with the name “Sonic the Hedgehog”.
SEGA started releasing Sonic Games with different genres such as platformer, Racing, Action, Fighting, Party, Role-playing, and Sports on platforms such as SEGA consoles, Nintendo 3DS, Xbox 360, and PlayStation. Then on 14th Feb 2020 Sonic, the Hedgehog was released as a movie. With a cast that consisted of Ben Schwartz, James Marsden, Tika Sumpter, and the legendary Jim Carrey, this movie was looked forward to by all the video game geeks.
The Plot Summary
This movie is about the story of Sonic, who is a super fast interdimensional creature, played by Ben Schwartz, constantly being hunted by power-hungry bad guys. He is constantly on the run as he gets followed by those power-hungry bad guys who are after his power and want to use them for their personal benefits in all the dimensions. He then ends up on Earth, where he makes a new friend Tom Wachowski, who’s played by James Marsden. But evil lurks everywhere he steps his foot on as he is constantly chased by people who hunger for his power.
This movie starts with Sonic messing around with the police on duty, Tom. Sonic then wanders off and starts playing baseball with himself until he causes a power shortage. Then the US government deploys search teams to get into the depth of this power shortage, where Doctor Eggman is introduced – played by Jim Carrey. Dr. Eggman quickly finds out about Sonic and starts chasing him. Upon realizing this, Sonic dashes to Tom’s house, where the two characters meet officially.
Tom freaks out after meeting Sonic, so he shoots him with a tranquilizer gun. As Sonic was about to use his rings to go onto another dimension, he gets hit and loses his rings. The rings could take Sonic anywhere upon saying the name of the place he wants to go.
Before passing out Sonic looks at Tom’s T-shirt that says San Francisco and drops the packet of rings into a ring which becomes a portal, which ends up landing on a skyscraper in San Francisco. Then Sonic and Tom become friends and Tom swears to help Sonic find his rings. But there is Doctor Eggman who’s always trying to get his hands on Sonic to achieve the power he had seen in Sonic for his own evil intentions.
Movie Details
The visual effects for Sonic the Hedgehog were provided by Moving Picture Company, Marza Animation Planet, Blur Studio, Trixter, and Digital Domain. These companies used Ted, the living teddy bear from the movie Ted as a reference to insert a CGI character into a real-world setting.
Scheduled to be released in 2018 by Sony Pictures it was rescheduled later to 15th November 2019 after Paramount Pictures took over the character rights. But it was again postponed to be released on 14th Feb 2020 as the Sonic character design was criticized by the hardcore Sonic fans causing a big controversy. Despite this controversy, however, there was no loss in image nor the business instead the fans got a version of Sonic that they loved and grew up with.
Business Details
Sonic the Hedgehog grossed a total of $319.7 million worldwide, making it the sixth-highest grossing film of 2020 and the highest-grossing superhero film of the year. It made a whopping $21 million on its first day, and over $70 million by the fourth day, making this movie the biggest opening weekend by a video game-based movie.
Although Sonic the Hedgehog was not critically acclaimed and did not receive high ratings from IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic which were 6.5/10, 63% fresh, and 47% respectively, I enjoyed the movie thoroughly. This movie brought a lot of nostalgic moments in my childhood when I used to play this game all day and night. I enjoyed the performance of all the actors, especially Jim Carrey with his hilarious and sarcastic comments and expressions.
Jim Carrey also won the Critics’ Choice Super awards for the best villain in a movie in 2020. This movie has also been nominated for a lot of awards as well. This movie has a total runtime of 98 minutes. However, I am now excited for the sequel of Sonic the Hedgehog which is set to be released on 8th April 2022.
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