Sonic the Hedgehog is Speeding Through the Ranks

By Isabella Mauro, Reporter            Published March 13, 2020

On February 14, 2020, the new movie Sonic the Hedgehog was released in theaters across America. After pushing back the release date a few months to redesign the main character, the movie has finally made its way to theaters, in which positive feedback has not let up.

Sonic the Hedgehog is another video game based movie, written and directed by Jeff Fowler. Sonic, voiced by Ben Schwartz, goes on an adventure to retrieve his lost rings with his human friend, played by James Marsden. The film stars Jim Carrey, who plays the villain throughout the movie.

The film was originally going to be released on November 15, 2019, but after major controversy over Sonic's character design, it was pushed back. When trailers were initially released in April 2019, fans were alarmed by his teeth. Many viewers said that his teeth made Sonic appear disturbing and creepy.

After the outrage, Fowler responded through a tweet: “The message is loud and clear ... you aren’t happy with the design & you want changes. It’s going to happen.” Paramount and Sega worked diligently on fixing Sonic’s design. 

Vincenzo Mauro, a junior in highschool, comments about the release date: “I was disappointed when I found out that it had been pushed back...but I do think that Sonic looks much better now.”

However, many people say that the starting outrage greatly helped the movie’s performance. By pushing back the movie to a later month, it made the release date a larger event than it would have been. After proper adjusting for inflation, it had the second largest Fri-Sun launch ever for a video game movie, and made a $70 million four-day cumulative. 

With a 64% fresh rating for critics and a 93% fresh rating for the public on rotten tomatoes, a large audience is happy with how the movie turned out. Mauro adds, “It was a good movie...I enjoyed it.”

Mauro and many others recommend going to see the movie. With the family friendly atmosphere and jokes for all ages, it has been a great hit across the world.