‘Sonic the Hedgehog 3’ movie review: Jim Carrey offers double the fun while Keanu Reeves is the steely softy  

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 movie review: Double the Jim Carrey, double the fun, with Keanu Reeves as Shadow. Chaos ensues.

What is better than one Jim Carrey? Two Jim Carreys, obviously! And there is also Keanu Reeves channelling his inner Baba Yaga as Shadow, the powerful and vengeance-driven alien hedgehog. Based on the videogame series, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 sees Sonic (Ben Schwartz), the superpowered hedgehog and his friends, Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey) the fox and Knuckles (Idris Elba) the echidna, save the world from yet another planet-levelling cataclysm. 

Shadow, with his unbridled power of chaos, is used by the military for experiments led by Professor Gerald Robotnik (Jim Carrey). Shadow forms a close friendship with the professor’s granddaughter, Maria (Alyla Browne). As the three are escaping from the military who want to lock Shadow away, Maria is accidentally killed, Shadow is placed in suspended animation in a Guardian Units of Nations (G.U.N) facility in Tokyo and Gerald is imprisoned. 

Fifty years later, Shadow is sprung out of prison and causes all manner of mayhem. Meanwhile, G.U.N. recruits team Sonic to defeat Shadow. After more cries of havoc, minus the dogs of war, a dastardly plot by Gerald and Shadow to bomb the G.U.N. headquarters in London is unearthed. Ivo Robotnik (Jim Carrey), Gerald’s estranged grandson, who has been spending time eating junk food while watching Spanish melodramas, joins the party while his assistant, Agent Stone (Lee Majdoub), continues his almost thankless job of making lattes with steamed Austrian goat milk for his boss.  

Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles’ adoptive parents, Tom (James Marsden) and Maddie Wachowski (Tika Sumpter), join the gang in London to stop the wicked plan of destroying the world. After a bunch of colourful pyrotechnics including the Robotniks jiving to Chemical Brothers’ ‘Galvanize’, the world is saved.  

Carrey indulges in a spot of breaking the fourth wall and infuses Sonic the Hedgehog 3 with his special brand of hectic goofiness. Reeves with his stillness and sorrow as Shadow provides the right counterpoint. The rest of the cast, both voice and live action, are fun as are the action sequences and music— I do have a weakness for a montage set to The Prodigy’s ‘Firestarter!’ The quips zip by at the speed of light, quite like the movie itself, propelled by the Jim Carrey double bill. As Dr. Robotnik comments, “Double your villains, double your fun!” 

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is currently running in theatres