Son­ic the Hedge­hog 2

Ahead of the Son­ic the Hedge­hog 2 screen­ing we saw for review pur­pos­es, a bespoke, high-end dis­claimer played ask­ing that audi­ences see­ing the film refrain from rush­ing to social media to spoil its secrets. When you encounter some­thing like that, not only does it alert you to the the per­ils of new media, the sanc­ti­ty if the cin­e­mat­ic expe­ri­ence and our col­lec­tive yearn­ing to reveal key plot points to our pals, but it makes you think that the film you’re about to watch con­tains del­i­cate and intri­cate­ly-con­ceived plot machi­na­tions that need to be blurt­ed out post haste.

Wouldn’t it be amaz­ing if audi­ences had the right of reply to such irri­tat­ing, bad-faith demands? How, indeed, is it pos­si­ble to ​“spoil” a film like Son­ic the Hedge­hog 2? Not that expec­ta­tions were sky high for this quick turn­around fam­i­ly sequel to the sur­prise (and sim­i­lar­ly awful) 2020 smash, but is it right for an audi­ence – who are made to endure a stern talk­ing to before being enter­tained – to expect basic com­pe­tence on any cre­ative lev­el? There is no way a film as aggres­sive­ly poor as Son­ic the Hedge­hog 2 could be spoiled more than its mak­ers have already done so themselves.

There’s a joke where peo­ple say, ​“This film’s plot could’ve been writ­ten on the back of a nap­kin!” Yet for Son­ic 2, a nap­kin seems like the equiv­a­lent of mul­ti-vol­umed anti­quar­i­an tome, as there is so lit­tle of sub­stance to this depress­ing­ly rote endeav­our. It sees the punch­line-spout­ing blue spiny mam­mal (who is basi­cal­ly the satir­i­cal Poochie from the Simp­sons tak­en at face val­ue) up to his old mon­keyshines in rur­al Seat­tle where he has tak­en to inde­pen­dent crime fighting.

Mean­while, a testy echid­na called Knuck­les (voiced by Idris Elba) unwit­ting­ly saves Dr Robot­nik (Jim Car­rey) from his exile on a mush­room plan­et, and the pair join forces to locate a chaos emer­ald with untold pow­ers. Fill­ing out the non-sen­tient cast is a shy lit­tle fox called Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey) who has the abil­i­ty to fly and has a back­pack full of gad­gets that are used for the sole pur­pose of nar­ra­tive expedience.

The rest is fill-in-the-blanks film­mak­ing where all ele­ments clear­ly could’ve done with a few more months (if not years) in the oven. The script feels like it was a poor first draft. The per­for­mances are phoned in. Even Car­rey is just schtick-ing hard for his pay­cheque, des­per­ate­ly attempt­ing to find some sub­tle vari­a­tion on his stan­dard arse­nal of gurns, gur­gles and wacky enun­ci­a­tions, but he rarely if ever hits the com­ic bullseye.

Worst of all is the qual­i­ty of the com­put­er graph­ics, which in many cas­es look incom­plete, or at least not ready for audi­ence con­sump­tion. As the ani­mat­ed char­ac­ters dash, or engage in com­plex inter­ac­tions with a real envi­ron­ment, their fig­ures appear blocky and indis­tinct, as if not prop­er­ly ren­dered. The shod­dy visu­als exem­pli­fy much of the film’s low-bar qual­i­ty con­trol, but it’s bizarre to see a Hol­ly­wood prod­uct look­ing this ugly: one sequence, in which Son­ic and Knuck­les are con­vers­ing on a beach after throw­ing sand over each oth­er, it looks like the effects artists have lit­er­al­ly for­got­ten key parts of the ani­ma­tion. The grim real­i­ty is that the mak­ers know this is Son­ic 2, and that no-one is real­ly going to care.

In a film where lit­er­al­ly the only good bit is when Son­ic falls over and says, ​“Oww, my pelvis!”, a pre-game spoil­er warn­ing is bad form to say the least. The best way to make sure arro­gant audi­ences don’t spoil your movie is to not treat them with bor­der­line contempt.

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