VGFlicks: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Part 5)

Sonic the Hedgehog 1: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5
Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5

I’m glad to be almost done with these two reviews. I’m due to talk about something else. Alright, let’s end this!

Three Versus A Giant

Just in case you need to envision the sheer scale
of what they're going up against.

Tails is very strong, but apparently, Knuckles is extra
heavy due to all the muscle.

Team Sonic has an attack plan. Sonic will be the target of Eggman’s attacks, leaving Tails and Knuckles free to make their way in and disrupt his control – of the robot, and of the Master Emerald. All it takes is some light taunting and Sonic has the Death Egg Robot on his trail, which is just enough to let his two allies (it’s too early to call the echidna a friend proper, no?) sneak onto the mecha. Meanwhile, Tom and Maddie coordinate the efforts to clear the streets of Green Hills of any people, but choose to “borrow” a jeep to look for their son.

Man, people love to “borrow” in these movies.

What? Already tired?

Sonic stops in the wood to mock Robotnik, who admits to already be looking beyond world domination. The universe? The multiverse, even! Why stop at just one universe, right? I can’t help but see that specific line as a joke at the tendency for franchises to do multiverse stuff these past few years. We'll see about that the day they decide to add Blaze to this Cinematic Universe. To be fair, we've already had Sonic Prime, which played with the concept. I haven’t seen it, though.

VGFlicks: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Part 4)

Sonic the Hedgehog 1: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5
Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5

Temple of the Hidden Emerald

They had to one-up Indiana Jones, huh?

Ivo Robotnik and Knuckles arrive on an island not that far from Hawaii, and plant the compass on a lock in the sand. A beam of green light shoots upwards, the seas part, and a massive temple appears from the waves. The beam is visible from Oahu, with Tom and Maddie calling out Commander Walters for focusing on Sonic instead of the mad scientist.

Yep. Like I said. Megamind's Black Mamba.

In Green Hills, Wade, patrolling the town on a cheap electric scooter, stops by the Mean Bean for coffee, only to find the place closed. A quick peek under the blinds and the place’s new life as a lair is exposed, with Agent Stone caught red-handed playing a dress-up game on a picture of Robotnik. Cowboy costume, a French maid outfit, or the Black Mamba from Megamind… You see that scene and try to convince me there’s no homoerotic text between these two! That scene originally went for much longer; originally, Wade would call Tom to figure out what to do, Tom would tell him to NOT go in there alone, and radio interference would make Wade hear the opposite. This explains why Tom and Maddie rode with G.U.N. back to Green Hills, whereas the final cut of the film doesn’t indicate why they went home specifically when there was a threat on the horizon. Wade bursts into the shop, threatening Stone with his weapon. Hey, he did something right as sheriff!

Officer Whipple on the case!

Into the unknoooooown-!

With no portal rings to get to the temple, Sonic has to face his fear of water and run across the ocean to reach the source of the beam. Hey, cut me some slack, the kiddie pool I sent them hasn’t arrived yet! He gears up, then speeds off. It’s a tough moment for him, one that ends with him seemingly not reaching his destination. The waves become too strong and he's overwhelmed – but he lands on the correct island.

Movie Review: The Monkey

...Jesus tap-dancing fucking tabarnak de câlisse de Christ.

If I come out of the theater swearing like that, it was either extremely bad, extremely good, or extremely memorable. The first and last rarely overlap; the last two, it's much more common.

The Monkey, directed by Osgood Perkins (who also made Longlegs, released last year) and released on February 21st, is a film adaptation of a short story by Stephen King first published in 1980 and then added to the Sketon Crew collection released in 1985. I talk a lot about games, movies and music on here, but I rarely mention how much of a reader I am - I got tons of books to get through, and Skeleton Crew is one of them. From what I've read about it, the stories in that one are particularly messed up, perhaps moreso than in other King short story collections I've read. Your... your life changes when you hear about Survivor Type. If you value your sanity, don't Google it.

Just in case you don't know what to expect from The Monkey, the tagline says enough: "Everybody dies, and that's fucked up". King himself loved it and described it as "batshit insane", so...

The story

Twin brothers Bill and Hal (both played during childhood by Christian Convery) grew up without their dad, a world traveler who up and left one day, leaving behind a treasure trove of souvenirs from his trips. The brothers have a strained relationship with each other, with Bill behaving very much like a bully to his younger brother. Digging through the souvenirs, the brothers find a blue round box containing an antique drum-banging monkey toy. "Turn the key and see what happens", says the box. Well, they do, and since nothing happens, they dismiss the thing as broken.

VGFlicks: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Part 3)

Sonic the Hedgehog 1: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5
Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5

Snow and Knuckles

Yep, it's that part of the movie that's coming.
It's likely you already know what I mean.

Cut back to Rachel’s wedding. Tom gets humiliated at volleyball by Randall and his groomsmen, all shaped like they spend their lives at the gym. Randall calls them his squad. When the groom goes away, Maddie and Jojo show up; the latter, acting as ringbearer, shows the spouses’ rings to Tom. He pulls a little magic prank by making one of the rings disappear, then summoning it back. After the girl has left, he looks back at the “squad” and ponders on how his son doesn’t really have a team of friends like this.

Adorable as ever, always by his friend's side.

Sonic and Tails, meanwhile, fly across Siberian mountains and reach the secret temple of the owls. Can I quickly say that, among the major celebrities voicing characters in these films (Ben Schwartz, Idris Elba, Christopher Lloyd and Keanu Reeves), I’m glad they kept Colleen O’Shaughnessy for Tails? It feels like a consecration. Like a tacit admittance that nobody could voice Tails better than her. In an age where entirely too many animated movies (or animated characters in live-action films) use A-list celebs as voices to get butts in theaters, there are still times where career voice actors get their moment. Even better, I think Tails shines a lot more here (and in cartoons like Sonic Boom) than he gets to in most games, where he’s a side-character. Movie!Tails is very close to all other versions of himself, not deviating much when compared to Sonic and Robotnik; even the whole "bullied about his two tails" part is taken from the booklet of his first game appearance.

Wonder whether this thing is scanning for a hedgehog
specifically, or for anything that's NOT an echidna.

At the entrance, Tails reads a legend engraved on the walls, about the Echidnas using seven Chaos Emeralds to forge the Master Emerald, an item that can make its wielder manifest desires into reality. The Owls rose up, believing that no group should possess such power; they stole and hid it. Owls and Echidnas have fought ever since, with the Echidnas attempting to retrieve their artefact. Within the temple is a giant owl statue, which Sonic activates through a puzzle whose answer is on the map they were carrying. After detecting their presence, the statue gives Sonic a compass that indicates the location of the Emerald.

Sheesh, he just started and he's already a snowboarding
expert!

Their joy is short-lived, as they are targeted by an army of egg drones. Robotnik and Knuckles come down to steal the compass. Banter ensues, Robotnik fires a missile, Sonic tosses it back at the statue. He flees with Tails, destroying a drone on the way and using a piece of it as a snowboard. He goes down the slopes, while Tails flies off. Knuckles smashes another drone to get a board for himself, then gives chase. Sonic barely breaks a sweat against Eggman’s armada, no matter how many there are; but the echidna, that’s a whole other story.

VGFlicks: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Part 2)

Sonic the Hedgehog 1: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5
Sonic the Hedgehog 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.

Movie Review: Paddington in Peru

Guess it's a good moment for me to discuss this film, since I mentioned Paddington in my Sonic 1 review, not even two weeks ago. Full disclaimer, I heard great things about this film franchise, but I hadn't seen any of them until very recently (as in, December last year or this year). Even then, I only really caught the latter half of the first; that said, I did see the second film in full; you know, the one that temporarily dislodged Citizen Kane as the best-reviewed film of all time? Yep, that one.

This Paddington movie wasn't directed by Paul King like the previous two; Dougal Wilson took over the role. Considering the reputation those two films have, Wilson had big shoes to fill.

The story

Paddington (voiced by Ben Whishaw) has been living in United Kingdom with the Browns for several years now, to the point of being properly adopted by them. (Sounds a bit like the other movie I'm reviewing lately. Fun coincidence, that.) He has even achieved an extra step by getting an official passport! The bear himself hasn't changed much; eternally sweet and without an ounce of malice in him, Paddington keeps landing into shenanigans solely due to his own clumsiness.

The Browns around him, however, have changed quite a bit. Not so much Mr. Henry Brown (Hugh Bonneville), who still works in risk assessment and insurance. However, his daughter Judy (Madeleine Harris) is preparing her transition to a university, with Mrs. Mary Brown (Emily Mortimer, replacing Sally Hawkins) distraught that one of her kids is leaving the nest. For her son Jonathan Brown (Samuel Joslin), it's the complete opposite issue; he's learned well from educative toys and became somewhat of an inventor, but only uses his creations to "chill" in his room and leave it as little as possible. Meanwhile, Mrs. Bird (Julie Walters) tends to the house.

VGFlicks: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Part 1)

Sonic the Hedgehog 1: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5
Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5

Consensus on the first Sonic movie was that it was surprisingly good, considering its troubled production. It fell into the same traps as other family films starring CGI characters, but it was otherwise a promising first step into a franchise. We knew it would become a franchise, judging by the surprise appearance of Miles “Tails” Prower in the stinger. And indeed, there have been plans as early as between the first two films to expand into a potential Cinematic Universe. Which I thought that was an early call to make. Guess it makes sense to think that big though, since the Sonic universe is pretty large. Thus, so far, every Sonic movie’s stinger has showcased a character from the games joining in the next film.

I reviewed the first film; we're on to Sonic 2. The film was released in North American theaters on Apil 8th, 2022. There’s a LOT to say yet again, so let’s jump in.

Portobello Purgatory

…AKA the Mushroom Planet. Doctor Robotnik has been trapped in this world for eight months. The “home by Christmas” deadline? Looks like that failed. At least, he has used his super-genius intellect to adapt to this environment, even finding subsistence from the surrounding mushrooms. His attempts at making a drinkable coffee with the stuff, however? Not great. Love his Rube Goldberg machine, though. He may claim he doesn’t want company, but the vaguely face-shaped rock he named Stone says otherwise. Hey, in isolation, everybody needs a Wilson.

In short, Robotnik is trying to recreate the EMP blast that
led him to Sonic, hoping it will bring others to him. Smart.

The doctor has scavenged his flying ship for parts and has set up camp. The blue quill he has kept still has plenty of energy. He has been hard at work, building a beacon atop a giant mushroom. Because I’m thorough, I looked up the film’s deleted scenes, and found out that in the original script, Robotnik tripped out on the shroom juice and hallucinated the Stone head talking to him. (You can see Agent Stone’s actor Lee Madjoub, in the bloopers, with his head all done up like the rock, so that scene got far into production before getting scrapped.) Even better, this bizarre moment leads to the scientist getting the idea to build a beacon. Sure, it sounds like something he could have thought of without drugs, but it would have been even funnier if drugs were the reason. Maybe they figured this would push the boundaries too much for a family film.

VGFlicks: Sonic the Hedgehog (Part 5)

Sonic the Hedgehog 1: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5
Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5

I’m almost done! I’m almost done!

Battle Around The World

Back where we started. Time to see how it ends.

The only way this could get more stereotypical is if the
mime went "Sac-"
"Sacrebleu!"
....Ah, come on.

Sonic has sent Tom and Maddie home through a portal ring, but the battle with Eggman, I mean Doctor Robotnik, is far from over. The doc's flying ship has the power to go just as quickly as the blue blur. Finally, a challenge. When we left off, Sonic was running through the streets, dodging blasts from the doc’s machine. Passing under a bus advertising trips to France, Sonic gets an idea and, still speeding through the town, summons a portal that takes him… yep, you guessed it, to France. However, the ship is also fast enough to follow into the ring and resume the chase. Complete with mandatory Eiffel tower cameo and Robotnik yelling an “Excusez-moi, monsieur!” at a mime he almost crashes into. Geez, could you be more stereotypical?

Runnin' Up That Pyramid

The fight is later taken to the Great Wall of China – that one was on Sonic’s bucket list, he wanted to run on it! Sure, he’s being hunted down, but it just makes his tourist visit more interesting, right? Still unable to flee, Sonic summons another portal, this time into Egypt, running towards the Pyramid of Giza. Fun fact: Those are damn close to civilization, so if the movie wanted to be accurate, instead of large areas of sand near them, Sonic would basically be running through streets again. He could stop by the KFC right by the Pyramids if he wanted, but that stuff would be worse for his colon than the chilidogs were. No, not speaking from experience. Meanwhile, Robotnik has gone full trigger-happy and blasting whatever’s in his way, including the Sphinx! And then he has the gall to call Sonic out for running up the side of the pyramid? Even a sand-tornado buffed up by the hedgehog’s fast running isn’t enough to deter the wacko!

Can hardly get more ominous than that.

Sonic summons a final portal at the top and gets blasted into it by his enemy. He crash-lands, wounded into Green Hills’ main street… late into the evening. When Tom and Maddie were falling through Sonic’s portal, they landed on a pile of hay in a farm, and the day was still bright. Yet, it’s almost night now? Have Sonic and Robotnik been fighting around the world for literal hours, and we were just shown a few minutes? Is that what happened? I mean, I’d believe it if it was stated anywhere.

VGFlicks: Sonic the Hedgehog (Part 4)

Sonic the Hedgehog 1: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5
Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5

Holding Out for A Friend

"....Hi honey! Uh... you ever wanted a pet hedgehog?"

Tom arrives in San Francisco and parks his roofless truck in front of his sister-in-law’s house. His wife Maddie had been staying at Rachel’s with their dog, Ozzy, while looking for an apartment. He hides Sonic in a blanket and knocks at the door. Rachel (Natasha Rothwell) tries to block his way, but Maddie is willing to let him in. Reminder that Tom Wachowski is currently wanted and considered a domestic terrorist. Robotnik having the full power of the U.S. Government backing him is scary. The sisters argue some more, but Rachel’s daughter Jojo (Melody Niemann) greets “uncle Tommy”, hugging him. Finally, one happy voice in here! Heck, even Ozzy is barking like crazy at the blanket in Tom’s arms!

The arguing continues while Ozzy tugs at the blanket, pulling it off and revealing the unconscious alien to all. Rachel faints. Ah, finally some silence in here.

Obviously, the live-action filming was done
before VFX, and thus, before the design
change, so the acting puppet was of Ugly
Sonic. This one doesn't look too bad, I guess.

Okay, we’ll resume the plot after a moment, I just want to address something again. One aspect of art is that we enjoy the end product but rarely realize just how hard it can be to get there. How much work goes into it. That’s especially true for visual effects, where the goal is to either not notice that something was changed, or to make the audience believe that what was added really was there. The latter is the goal that live-action films with CGI characters strive to achieve. In my opinion, one of the best ways to do this is to have the animated characters have believable physical interactions with the human characters. In my opinion, the more these unreal characters interact with the real world, the better it feels.

A lot of that trickery can be achieved using puppets or stand-in actors. As an example, at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy, when Drax pets Rocket, it’s James Gunn’s brother Sean sitting there in a greenscreen jumpsuit, positioned to account for Rocket’s size. The Sonic franchise? It’s puppets; the bonus features on the DVD for the Knuckles miniseries shows some behind-the-scenes with puppet Knuckles. It’s great. I love me some behind-the-scenes.