The dream of the ‘90s is alive in “Sonic the Hedgehog 3,” with Jim Carrey giving not one but two gleefully deranged performances that harken to his rubber-faced comedic greatness of three decades ago.
Do you miss the slapstick antics of “Dumb & Dumber”? Here, you get Robotnik & Robotnik. Carrey reprises his malevolent mastermind role from the previous two “Sonic” movies while also playing Gerald Robotnik, Dr. Ivo Robotnik’s equally evil grandfather. Both are verbose and elaborately mustachioed. And the moment these long-lost relatives find each other features a fourth-wall break that surpasses anything that occurs in this week’s “Mufasa: The Lion King.”
In theory, though, you’re here for Sonic, voiced once again with fast-paced swagger and sass by Ben Schwartz. But he keeps getting upstaged by his co-stars in this zippy third installment from director Jeff Fowler. Besides Carrey, there’s Keanu Reeves providing his signature quiet intensity to the role of Shadow. Imagine John Wick as a super-powered, diabolical space hedgehog and you’ll get an idea of the seriousness with which Reeves approached the assignment. Whoa.
All of this is to say that “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” is way better than it has a right to be: as a video game adaptation, as a threequel, as a family-friendly movie coming out on the cusp of Christmas. I, personally, am not a fan of the Sega video game—as in, I’ve never played it before in my entire life—but that’s not a requirement to have a good time here.
“Sonic 3” takes a little while to get going, and it’s super corny off the top. And the script from returning writers Pat Casey & Josh Miller, and Josh Whittington features way too many adolescent insults and wedged-in pop culture references. But for a lot of people, that will be a feature and not a bug. It’s just who Sonic is.
Still, once Carrey’s frenetic performances kick into gear, he gets to take this movie to incredibly strange places, ensuring that it will probably work for the adults in the audience as well as the little kids who dragged them there.
At the film’s start, the red-striped Shadow breaks out of Prison Island, where he’s been held for the past 50 years, seeking revenge. Sonic, Knuckles (an endearingly goofy Idris Elba) and the perky Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessy) have been enjoying a quiet life in small-town Green Hills, Montana, with Tom (James Marsden) and his wife, Maddie (Tika Sumpter). Aside from Carrey’s characters, the human beings are less necessary than ever this time.
But the furry space creatures must dash into action to stop this formidable foe, and the former rivals realize the only way to do that is to work together. This entails going after the McGuffiniest of McGuffins, which the Robotniks also are seeking to fuel their giganto weapon of doom. It’s all extremely silly until, unexpectedly, actual stakes emerge.
The visual effects are impressively seamless, for the most part, in this live action-animation hybrid. Cinematographer Brandon Trost gives everything from forest chases to dance numbers a colorful sheen, befitting the lively material. (He also recently shot Marielle Heller’s “Nightbitch,” how’s that for range?) And composer Tom Holkenborg, better known as Junkie XL, returns with a score that’s knowingly melodramatic to punctuate all these adventures.
Make sure you stay all the way through the credits for a couple of teasers of what’s to come. Based on the gasps and squeals from several people at a recent press screening, it could be out of this world.
