Son­ic the Hedgehog

In the small, sleepy town of Green Hills, Mon­tana, a super­fast extra-ter­res­tri­al hedge­hog paus­es for an unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly pro­longed spell to look long­ing­ly through a house win­dow at local sher­iff Tom (James Mars­den) and vet­eri­nar­i­an Mad­die (Tika Sumpter) watch­ing tele­vi­sion inside.

Though in exile and in hid­ing, Son­ic (voiced by Ben Schwartz) has long been observ­ing this kind­ly cou­ple, yearn­ing to be a ful­ly inte­grat­ed mem­ber of their fam­i­ly. Tonight’s film is, appro­pri­ate­ly enough, Jan de Bont’s Speed, whose lines Son­ic has already com­mit­ted to mem­o­ry from many pre­vi­ous view­ings with – but not real­ly with – his entire­ly unwit­ting adop­tive parents.

All the major themes of Jeff Fowler’s direc­to­r­i­al debut, freely adapt­ed by screen­writ­ers Pat Casey and Josh Miller from the Sega video game fran­chise, are laid out in this scene. On the one hand, there is the iso­la­tion and lit­er­al alien­ation of this CGI-con­fect­ed pro­tag­o­nist, whose blue skin, body fur and promi­nent plumes mean that, unlike Kal-el escaped from Kryp­ton, he can­not eas­i­ly pass for a local.

Son­ic resorts to solo games of ping-pong, and also races at dizzy­ing speed as pitch­er, hit­ter, run­ner and field­er around an oth­er­wise emp­ty base­ball dia­mond, all in vain attempts to stave off his lone­li­ness and to sat­is­fy his desire to be part of a team and a com­mu­ni­ty. This alien’s love for human­i­ty sets him apart from, and at odds with, the film’s vil­lain, Dr Ivo Robot­nik (a scene-steal­ing Jim Car­rey), an arro­gant, mono­ma­ni­a­cal mis­an­thrope who prefers his machines to any human company.

Owing to his self-imposed iso­la­tion, Son­ic has had to piece togeth­er his under­stand­ing of human cul­ture vic­ar­i­ous­ly, via speed-read­ing of dis­card­ed com­ic books (Flash being his inevitable favourite) and reg­u­lar win­dow-view­ing of tele­vi­sion. Sim­i­lar­ly, Son­ic the Hedge­hog is itself a know­ing­ly deriv­a­tive hodge­podge of pop references.

Robotnik’s mechan­i­cal vehi­cles con­ceal ever small­er vehi­cles, in an exag­ger­at­ed par­o­dy of the Bat­mo­bile from Christo­pher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. Kid-at-heart Son­ic cre­ates may­hem in a bik­ers’ water­ing hole, in a sequence that improb­a­bly merges a sim­i­lar scene from Tim Burton’s Pee-wee’s Big Adven­ture with Quicksilver’s slowed-time chaos from Bryan Singer’s X‑Men: Days of Future Past.

Son­ic uses tele-por­tal rings from his Felix-style bag of tricks to leap instant­ly across glob­al loca­tions – or even plan­ets – in a visu­al nod to Doug Liman’s Jumper. Mean­while Tom and Maddie’s mar­i­tal sur­name Wachows­ki serves to acknowl­edge the clear influ­ence of the Wachowskis’ Speed Rac­er on this film’s break­neck pac­ing, whole­some fam­i­ly val­ues, car­toon­ish physics and its more gen­er­al blur­ring of live-action and dig­i­tal animation.

Accu­mu­lat­ing all man­ner of cul­tur­al detri­tus as it rolls rapid­ly along its way, Son­ic the Hedge­hog jumps through one well-estab­lished nar­ra­tive hoop after anoth­er, bare­ly ever putting its feet on the ground, no mat­ter how worn the protagonist’s brand­ed train­ers may get. It is at once super­hero ori­gin sto­ry, chase flick and kids’ fun-time adven­ture, all leav­ened by savvy dia­logue, sur­re­al segues and Carrey’s unhinged performance.

It’s crazy and colour­ful enough while it lasts, but the fleet­ing diver­sions on offer from Sonic’s first big-screen out­ing pass too quick­ly to leave much of a foot­print in the mem­o­ry. Con­clud­ing scenes (and two codas!) point to com­ing sequels, per­haps even an unfold­ing Sega uni­verse. But view­ers may well be left won­der­ing if they’ve real­ly got­ta catch ​’em all.