Sonic’s return as live-action hero fast wears out his welcome
Sonic The Hedgehog PG ★★★★★
Nine months ago, Pokémon: Detective Pikachu set the bar very high indeed for live-action films designed to reinvigorate old video-game characters that were huge in the Nineties but in danger of being forgotten.
Alas, the new film designed to do just that for Sonic the Hedgehog – best known for being alien, blue and running at very high speeds – doesn’t come close. Where the Pokémon reboot oozed class and revelled in its film-noir feel, this seems like a tired old road-trip movie for which most of the budget has been spent on some familiar-looking visual effects (lots of drones) and persuading Jim Carrey to take on the part of Sonic’s nemesis, Dr Robotnik.
What happens? Well, Sonic, left – now furrier, definitely with two eyes but still small, fast and blue – is perfectly happy with his quiet new life in small-town America.
But then, and this is complicated, he has a run-in with local cop Tom Wachowski (James Marsden), drops his magic rings when Tom is thinking of San Francisco and, suddenly, said vital rings are on the top of that city’s Transamerica building. Which leaves Sonic and Tom little choice but to pile into his pickup, head to the West Coast and, we hope, become buddies along the very long way.
It’s clearly aimed more at children than accompanying adults, but in an underdeveloped, underwritten way that soon proves wearing.
Spycies PG ★★★★★
Remember Zootopia, the rather good 2016 cartoon about a young police officer who happened to be a rabbit?
Or last year’s Will Smith animation about a secret agent who was turned into a pigeon,
Spies In Disguise?
Well, Spycies is quite like both of them, with Vladimir, a secret agent who just happens to be a cat, teaming up with
Hector, ditto but a rat (below), to recover a powerful energyproducing material stolen from the deep-sea platform they were guarding. So far, so anthropomorphic and familiar. But while this may enjoy decent animation, it suffers from a convoluted story that tries – and fails – to combine espionage with global warming. There’s also a baffling oddness that involves a bee film star who wants an antennae reduction, a mammoth who’s been shaving his fur to pass as an elephant, and a snake that turns into a firebreathing dragon when it drinks coffee.
Not nearly as much fun as it sounds.