So what, maybe Olive Garden? – review of the movie “Sonic. Fast as lightning “

Loneliness in the countryside

One day an extraordinary creature comes into the world. Small, blue, but boisterous and incredibly fast. His powers quickly attract the attention of inappropriate types, so the pet has to run away – to do this, he receives a purse full of magical teleport rings. He manages to make himself at home on Earth. He has a cozy burrow where he keeps piles of comic books and friends to watch movies with – or at least he tells himself to curb his loneliness. A moment of weakness means that the hiding hedgehog is considered a potential threat, and the brilliant but crazy Dr. Ivan Robotnik (Jim Carrey) sets out to chase him. So Sonic joins forces with Tom Wachowski (James Marsden), the local sheriff.

I must admit right away that I had rather superficial contact with the virtual views of the adventures of a nice hedgehog. My intuition (and very vague memories) tells me, however, that the arcade platformer storyline does not abound in stunning twists and psychological depth. This is also the case here – the story is as simple as it is warm, like a cup of hot cocoa. Yes, the history itself can be accused of pretext, and even infantile naivety, but throughout the film it knows perfectly well what it is and to whom it is directed – it does not pretend to be a missionary parable or a philosophical treatise on the condition of modern man (hello, Resident Evil !). It is surprisingly refreshing in the age of content created “for everyone” – that is, de facto for no one.

Always black and white

You should not expect Oscar-winning acting creations. In this respect, Sonic brings to mind TV family movies broadcast on Sunday lunchtime – just nice-looking, more widely unknown people (sometimes only with familiar-looking faces) utter words and react to them. And only Jim Carrey shoots mines like in the good old days. Of course, this is not the level of the Truman Show or Man on the Moon, however, it can be felt that the actor himself is enjoying himself, and the viewer is also enjoying this feeling. This creation is completely exaggerated and caricatured “over-tarnished”, but it fits well with the convention of a fairy tale, in which there is no room for shades of gray. And so Tom, Sonic and the company are painfully good and heroic, while Robotnik and his helpers – soaked with evil to the core. And it even holds up.

Polish viewers will not hear one of the biggest attractions of the original language version – Ben Schwartz’s sonik, known from the Parks and Recreation and BoJack Horseman series, for example . On the Vistula River, we will watch the film in cinemas only with Polish dubbing. This one, however, is quite natural and decent; after a while, you no longer notice that the mouth movements do not quite match the words you say.

The best-selling movie in the world

The relationship between the film industry and game developers has never been the easiest. Because how to reconcile so many different, often contradictory, components: directors and screenwriters have their own vision, fans of individual titles – specific expectations, and developers and publishers have been pampering extensive stories and characteristic mechanics for years, so they expect a decent representation on the screen. The sponsors invested money – so it would be nice to integrate their products into the staff. Average popcorn eaters who just want to watch a nice movie are also tangled up in this mosaic. And those poor producers who just want to earn.

It’s easy to get the impression that in the case of Sonic, the largest slice of the cake went to trading partners. The placement of goods and services here is so intrusive and blatant that it knocks the viewer off the beat (it is worth mentioning at this point that I watched the film courtesy of Cinema City). While you can still get over the presence of a website that collects offers for sale and rental of real estate (after all, Tom is planning to move), the characters weaving in the names of companies and their advertising slogans with subtlety equal the actions of entrepreneurial heads who tighten the budgets of Polish tapeworms and romantic comedies. What’s more fun, the one-to-one translated dialogues praise services… not available in Poland. If it was about Berlinki …

Medium on a hedgehog

There is nothing to hide – the cinematic Sonic is neither very innovative nor original. At the same time, it is not a very unsuccessful film – it is looked at quite nicely (several months of delay spent on completely reworking the image of the main subject were not wasted), and the story, although slightly leaky and in fact not logical, turns out to be surprisingly easy to digest. Just in time for a one-time screening.

For the movie Sonic. Fast as lightning, we  invite you to the Cinema City cinema network.