VGFlicks: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Part 2)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5

The Echidna and the Fox

They both mean business, but one is acting a lot less
silly than the other.

Sonic and Robotnik stare each other down. It doesn’t get serious until the mad doc threatens Tom, Maddie and even Ozzy. In full defender mode, Sonic jumps to punch Robotnik in the face – he could do anything else, but he knows how much the roboticist hates it. However, before the hedgehog can reach his target, the human moves out of the way and in comes a red echidna, who promptly punches Sonic across the room and through the wall and flat-screen TV. Robotnik presents his new ally, Knuckles. Sonic tries to fight again but gets punched through another wall and into the backyard for his troubles. The doctor has claimed Sonic’s movie night popcorn bowl and munches from it evilly while the aliens duke it out. The hedgehog is no match.

He doesn't even look like he needs any effort to hold
Sonic in place. Damn.

You know that saying, “unstoppable force meets immovable object”? You get one guess as to which is which. A charged spindash from Sonic barely phases Knuckles, who holds the balled hedgehog in place without effort and punches him to the ground like he was nothing. When he warrior has the hedgehog held against a tree, he talks about how he can restore the honor of his ancestors by reclaiming the ultimate power. The prying ears of an Eggman are instantly titillated by that descriptor. Knuckles continues, saying that Longclaw – Sonic’s tutor before he fled to Earth – and her tribe were enemies of the Echidnas. However, before he can smash a hedgehog’s face in, a police car comes through the fence and crashes into the red barbarian.

Eyes on the road, kid!

Will say, sending a cop car down a ravine is an...
extreme measure, but hey, the situation required it.

Out pops Tails, who urges Sonic to climb aboard. They drive off, with Tails pushing the pedals with electric devices since he’s too short to reach them. Knuckles gives chase and is surprisingly fast for someone without super speed. During the chase, Tails explains that the echidna believes that Sonic holds the key to the Master Emerald – an artifact that Sonic says is just a bedtime story! This exposition is cut short when the warrior lands on the cop car and takes it apart. To get rid of him, Tails sends the car plummeting down a cliff, but he grabs Sonic and flies away with his helicopter tails. The echidna, incapable of catching them, latches on to the cliff.

Those bee-bots are new. He had those all along?

Robotnik comes by on a mower to check up on his ally, seeing the two who’ve fled by air. He sends a quick message to his handiman who had stayed on Earth. Agent Stone, elsewhere, pushes a button that connects to a satellite in space, from which a large egg-shaped piece disconnects. The piece, a spaceship, lands just by Robotnik’s position, providing him with plenty of robots, both egg- and bee-shaped, as well as a new red vest and even robots to tidy up his messy ‘stache.

Knuckles won't learn right away that a handshake
does NOT involve destroying the other's hand.

His drones form a staircase to let Knuckles climb up, then strikes a deal with the echidna. After all, sure, he’s on Earth now, but finding and beating Sonic may not be so simple. Robotnik therefore offers the full force of his armada as backup, seeing as they have the blue hog as a common enemy. Robotnik brings a hand forwards, explaining the Earthling custom of the handshake for trust and alliance… and gets his hand crushed in Knuckles’ super-powerful grip. The mad doc is doing this to get his hands on the “ultimate power” he just heard about. He barely hides it, yet Knuckles is too daft to pick up on that. Well! Time to meet up with Stone.

Ah, Wade…

To be fair to them, Knuckles and Wade have a dynamic that's
way weirder and funnier than what Sonic has with Tom.

This film gives a greater role to preexisting secondary characters; Maddie and Rachel are more present in it, but so are Agent Stone and Wade. Following this film, we get a whole miniseries in which we get to know Wade Whipple better than we would have ever desired from seeing him in these films. Will I review the Knuckles series someday? Definitely. It has its own issues that are worth discussing; despite being the friggin’ title character, Knuckles takes a backseat to Wade and the rest of his family in the second half. Were it not for several scenes that got cut for time (this film is already two hours long), Wade would have had a greater role here. We would first see him trying to repair his bike for patrols, seeing as his car was stolen (by a certain yellow fox; not naming names). We would later see him patrol around on a cheap scooter when he finds the villains’ new lair.

Won't be Wade's only time speaking to a spirit advisor.
...unless it doesn't count with a hologram...?

Would have been nice to find out about this earlier!
...or maybe the map was waiting for a moment where Sonic
would be ready for the task? Who knows.

The boys come to Wade for help. They try to figure out why Knuckles believes that Sonic has access to the Master Emerald. The hedgehog pulls the map of the known worlds from his bag of rings, and his attention is brought to the pictogram of the Master Emerald on the side. Calling attention to the pictogram is enough to make it shine, and out pops a hologram of Longclaw. The giant owl explains, with her motherly tone, that she did not send Sonic to Earth at random; the planet was chosen as the secret hiding location of the Master Emerald. The legendary jewel can make its wielder’s thoughts into reality, and it was her duty to protect it. The duty is now passed down to her… uh… adoptive son, I guess.

Do we ever get an answer as to why Sonic was raised by Longclaw instead of hedgehogs? I mean, I’m not judging, it’s just, the lack of answer is weird. Is it going to wait until after another miniseries has passed, or is it coming in movie 4 or 5? (On a sadder note, the Pre-Quill comic confirms that she died fighting the echidna tribe, but not before slaughtering them all as well.)

...seriously, Wade?

After the hologram fades away, Wade, still being a dummy, asks Tails if that giant owl was the fox’s dad. Eff’s sake, dude. Reading the map, Sonic figures out that the first clue leads to Siberia, where they’ll find a compass that will take them to the Emerald. They must hurry to find it before Knuckles. Then Wade, a dummy again, thinks the two are talking about some middle-school bully he knew who had that as a nickname.

…Reminder that we got a 3-hour miniseries with Wade as main character.

Sonic opens a portal to Siberia, and convinces Tails to come along, despite the younger fox’s initial reluctance.

The Importance of Stone

Stone is allegedly very smart, so why would he settle for
a job at a café? Well, that's no ordinary café...

The first time we see Stone in this movie, he has become a barista, the only employee at a coffee shop in Green Hills named the Mean Bean. Again, lovely mythology gag. He spends his days drawing Robotnik’s face in latte foam, a sorrowful expression at how much he misses his boss, only for those works of art to be stirred away by caffeine-seeking patrons. When the text message from Robotnik gets to him, he can barely contain his joy. He hurries all the customers out, then presses the big red button that sends the ovoid ship where his boss stands. Cue an exalted “HE’S BACK!!”

Turns out he was also behind the robbery of a bank where
Badniks were kept, a plan almost foiled by Sonic in
another chapter of the Pre-Quill comic.

Are you wondering why he took a job like that? Well, aside from his talent in making steamed Austrian goat milk lattes? That’s a logical step, but once again, any answer you’d like is found in the Pre-Quill series. Agent Stone is the contingency plan in case something happens to the doctor. He was left with a set of instructions to recover whichever of the scientist’s machines he could manage; after which, he was tasked with taking over some small business that he could operate on his own, while also transforming that building into a secret lair. Stone gets an entire comic to himself, in which he is shown applying as a barista at the Mean Bean. He then gets every other employee removed (sometimes fired, sometimes worse) from the place. This ends with the place’s nasty manager, whom he has nailed by the feds for (real or planted, it’s never specified) tax evasion. And he does it all with scary ease. It’s a side of the guy that we never see elsewhere; it shows that while nowhere as smart as Robotnik (then again, nobody is), he is a brilliant scientist, roboticist, and tactician in his own right. Kinda wished the movies showed this more.

After this short story, and his role in all three films... Y'know,
I would be cool with Lee Madjoub's Agent Stone having top
billing in a future miniseries of this Cinematic Universe.
Maybe with Shadow? You know that's gotta be coming.

There's zero hiding it, too. That pic isn't up-to-date on
the left, though.

And if the first film kept it as subtext, this time it’s straight-up text. Agent Stone, still no first name given, is the Waylon Smithers to Robotnik’s Mr. Burns. Yes, including the unrequited romantic feelings either spelt out or very strongly implied. Come on now, he draws their faces together with little hearts in the latte foam. Robotnik could be ace, for all we know; that won’t stop Stone from dreaming. He’s trying so hard to receive his boss’s recognition, without success. We never truly get an answer as to whether said boss considers him just a lackey, or his only friend; at least not till Sonic 3, and I’m not spoiling that. The one thing that’s clear, though, is that Robotnik does respect Stone slightly more than other humans; he's at least willing to leave instructions for Stone to follow in case he disappears, letting him use the drones and robots, and showing him more mercy than others, even if it’s rarely done respectfully.

Hey, I won’t stop the people who ship it.

Agent Stone is a little bland in the first film, though he already showed potential. That mistake was corrected here; he has some of the best scenes, whenever the Mean Bean is involved.

Yep, it's like I said. That latte foam picture
is a liiiiiiiiittle outdated. 

That's #2. Comedy comes in threes, so one more person's
gonna get their hand crushed before this film ends.

Upon his arrival at the café, the doc's new look stuns his lackey for a moment. This might take some getting used to. He had a lot more hair and a much more reserved mustache before he got banned to the Mushroom World. Stone also doesn’t seem too keen on the echidna, who has tagged along and is clearly not on the same intelligence level. Stone hasn’t just hidden small yet advanced machines around the café; with one password spoken aloud, it redecorates into a full-on evil scientist’s lair. Stone, too, shakes the echidna’s hand and learns why that’s a bad idea.

The scene so nice, they did it twice

Sonic and Tails have been walking through an Eastern Siberian snowstorm for too long. Freezing, they look for a place to stay the night and find a shack bustling with life. They steal winter clothes and bundle themselves up so that they can come in and be mistaken for human kids. Dressed like that? You'd think they walked right out of South Park.

And they're nowhere near Colorado.

Tails is also not the best at social cues, not figuring out that
Sonic may be slightly creeped out to learn that he had been
spied on for who knows how long.

And despite the high activity in the bar, nobody inside is too welcoming to the visitors. They still get a table and order a meal, using Tails’ portable gadget, the Miles Electric, as a translator. Its translation of English into Russian is… not great. While they wait on their order, Sonic and Tails chat. Sonic’s EMP blast in the first film was picked up on by machines all over the universe, including the young fox’s. Tails began spying on Sonic, seeing the hedgehog’s first confrontation with Doctor Robotnik… and kept watching when the alien got adopted by the Wachowskis. He sought to help Sonic, after learning (in a way that’s only explained in the Pre-Quill comics - yep, AGAIN) that Knuckles was also looking for the hedgehog.

During that wait, Sonic texts Tom, lying about his current location. He doesn’t know that their messages are spied on by Robotnik, Stone and Knuckles, who figure out their location. Robotnik leaves with Knuckles; they’ll use the round ship that we’ve seen Eggman so often in. The warrior asks what to do with Stone, the scientist suggests to just leave him behind, the warrior thinks this is dishonorable, the scientist doesn’t care. This is the first hint the knucklehead gets that the guy may not be so trustworthy, but he follows regardless.

Fur and fire... yeah, not friends.

Sonic and Tails get their meal, but the translator messes up and insults the people, who attack them. Revealed as aliens, the two are grabbed and almost thrown into the foyer, but Tails makes the translator work long enough to yell “Pivonka!” Which… does not mean “challenge” or “duel” or anything of the sort; according to Google Translate, it can mean “peony” in Czech, or it can be adapted into Russian to mean “beer”. “Dance battle” would be… pardon my accent… “tantseval'naya bitva”. Regardless, the patrons hear “dance battle”, and so they get the best dancer in the room to square off against the aliens. They even take the map hostage.

Are we still in a Sonic movie??!?
Does this guy have a picture of himself tattoed on his chest?

The fluffiest backup dancers! 

This scene piles on the ridiculous, it’s nuts. At first, Sonic and Tails struggle to dance, lacking synchronicity and a proper team dynamic, while the Siberian is putting on the most impressive dance moves with backup dancers! Everything seems lost, with Tails worrying that they won’t get their map back. Sonic gets an idea; he switches the song to Bruno Mars’ Uptown Funk, which he’s more familiar with, and he coordinates something with Tails. They start getting the patrons’ favors, and go a step beyond when Tails, using his gadget, creates holographic copies of himself and Sonic for an epic finale that makes them win the dance battle.

We all knew he was gonna do this pose at some point.

This movie is gonna make me squee over and over, isn't it.

Hailed for their demonstration, the boys get royal treatment from the Siberians, and are even allowed to stay the night. The two further chat, now thinking of each other as friends, and Tails says that he had trouble on his home planet, getting bullied because of his physical deformation. But he’s happy to have found Sonic. They’re both tired, so Sonic puts a blanket on a sleeping Tails, who returns the favor by covering the hedgehog with his fluffy tails. Awww~

Much as this scene is fun, one can’t help but shake off the impression that it was an attempt at recapturing the craziness of the Piston Pit biker bar from the previous movie – an off-topic but fun moment where Sonic and a new ally grow their budding friendship through confrontation. Nice, and good relationship development, but… yeah, the Siberian bar comes across as derivative.

Oh well! The treasure hunt will resume in Part 3!