‘Sonic’ succeeds despite original ire

Fallon Manzella-McReady, Staff Reporter

We all remember it.

We remember that ridiculous time a few months ago when the new trailer for a movie came out. Its main character was beloved video game star Sonic the Hedgehog. Normally the internet — or at the very least a third-grade classroom — would be buzzing with excitement like how they did when the beloved “Wreck it Ralph” came out.

That’s not what happened in April 2019. The trailer for the new movie “Sonic The Hedgehog” hit the web, and the internet went wild. People hated Sonic. His hair wasn’t right, his face fur was discolored and misplaced, and he had teeth. There was such an uproar on social media sites such as Reddit, Tumblr and Twitter that Paramount retracted and then reanimated the entire movie to create its current form.

Despite all that craziness from the trailer, the revamped film released in February is worth the watch. It’s a lovable, rag-tag story of an alien hedgehog and his human friend running away from an evil genius after Sonic accidentally causes a mass power-outage across the entire Pacific Northwest and becomes a wanted terrorist.

As a child, Sonic was chased out of Mobius, and with the help of a golden ring, he transported himself to Earth, or more specifically, Green Hills Montana, a tiny town full of Crazy Carls and familiar neighbors.

Sure, this is, at its core, a movie made for kids. It’s a movie about a guy and his blue anthropomorphic hedgehog, running away from Jim Carrey. You don’t have to have played the games, seen the many TV shows or read the countless fanfiction to see this movie because it’s so simple. It’s straightforward, clear and fun a story made for kids to understand.

But just because it’s made for kids doesn’t mean that it’s boring or that it isn’t thrilling. It had sweet and sad scenes — some that even made my mom cry — and funny, fast-paced scenes that made my younger sister laugh and kept her on her toes.

Even though it’s possible that some audience members probably haven’t seen Sonic’s many previous TV shows or played the games, maybe that’s a good thing.

Without the addition of a bunch of other characters to know and understand, this year’s blockbuster is a reinvention of Sonic and his legacy, but it doesn’t change our deep childhood love for everyone’s favorite speed-limit-defying hedgehog.