Nobody was betting much on an adaptation of the mythical blue hedgehog from Segha’s games in 2019 when Paramount published the first trailer for its film and unleashed a storm of memes. Five years and three deliveries later, ‘Sonic the Hedgehog 3’which reaches Netflix on June 10, can boast $492 million at the box office and two stars like Jim Carrey and Keanu Reeves on board the franchise. And the cherry on top: critics, for the first time in the saga, have sided with the hedgehog.
We all remember how a avalanche of memes It ended up giving rise to a film that not only succeeded in fleshing out the schematic plot of the original games, but along the way grossed $319 million at the global box office. Three films later, the series has grossed more than $1.2 billion worldwide. ‘Sonic 3’, produced with a budget of $122 million, became the highest grossing of the franchise and closed its career as the tenth most watched in 2024. It is the second most lucrative video game adaptation in history, behind only ‘Super Mario Bros. The Movie’.
In this new installment we move to 1974: a meteorite with an alien hedgehog on board, Shadow, falls on Earth. Professor Gerald Robotnik, grandfather of the villain of the series, subjects him to experiments in a secret facility, where the hedgehog befriends the scientist’s granddaughter. When an accident kills the girl, Shadow is left in suspended animation for fifty years. In 2024 someone frees Shadow, who wakes up furious and attacks Tokyo uncontrollably. Sonic, Tails and Knuckles try to stop him without success, forcing them to turn to Doctor Robotnik himself to stop him.
On Rotten Tomatoes, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 accumulates 86% (and 95% of the public). Jim Carrey’s double role and the fast-paced pace of the film are responsible for these ratings, well above the scores of the previous installments, which do not reach 70%. The presence of Keanu Reeves has also been highly praised, as he provides an astonishing gravity and dramatic component to Shadow, a secondary character in the video games who here takes a particularly threatening form. A fun and fast-paced puzzle in which, for once, all the pieces seem to fit together.
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