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Sonic, a success story
When the first trailer of the film was aired (the film is expected to hit Indian screens on February 28), fans of the original video game even wrote to its producers, protesting its “human teeth”.
Box-office earnings of $57 million in the US (and $107 million worldwide) will increase anybody’s standing in showbiz and the honours in early 2020 go to a furry blue sprinter, a hedgehog. According to Variety, Sonic the Hedgehog has outstripped Detective Pikachu ($54 million) of 2019 for the biggest inaugural showing ever for a video game adaptation. But how it got there is also a story by itself.
When the first trailer of the film was aired (the film is expected to hit Indian screens on February 28), fans of the original video game even wrote to its producers, protesting its “human teeth”. Its appearance was also compared to a gawky teen. The studio listened, redrew its critter, gave it hedgehog-teeth, and the film’s earnings are the result.
The story taps all beloved Hollywood tropes: self-discovery through road trips and boy meets alien to overcome the bad man. The revamped trailer also has him speeding up inside a washing machine. The moral of the story is clearly that speed does not kill! On Sonic’s planet, it was this very quality that people were after so Sonic teleports across space into the US.
Here, Sonic befriends a cop, Tom (played by James Marsden; Sonic is voiced by Ben Schwartz) and they team up to fob off evil genius, Ivo Robotnik (Jim Carrey). For fans of Carrey – yes, still pulling 20 facial expressions in a second – he is the best part of the movie. And for those who are not, this film may work for you if you have a really young kid you want to take to the movies, or if you are one at heart.
