January 1, 2025 – I've been looking forward to this movie because I liked the first two movies in this trilogy, but it was disappointing. There were a few good jokes in it, but key parts of the story depend on characters who are underdeveloped.

In this third movie in the trilogy, Sonic and his hedgehog pals, Tails and Knuckles are celebrating the anniversary of Sonic's arrival on Earth with Tom and Maddie Wachowski (James Marsden and Tika Sumpter, reprising their roles from the first two films of the trilogy) when a helicopter lands, informing them that they are needed for an important mission.

The mission is to capture a fast and powerful alien hedgehog, Shadow, who has escaped captivity and is causing a lot of damage. Shadow had been imprisoned for 50 years until someone arranged for him to escape custody. Shadow proves too powerful for Sonic, Tails and Knuckles to handle, so they seek the help of mad scientist Dr. Ivo Robotnik (played by Jim Carrey, also reprising his role).

Carrey is easily the best thing about this series, with his wild comic antics, and we get a double dose of him in this movie, as he plays two characters, Ivo Robotnik and his grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, and he makes a joke out of playing these two characters, too, one of the better jokes in this movie. The computer generated animation in the movie is impressive as are the exotic locations and action sequences.

A flashback at the beginning of the movie provides a rather inadequate back story for Shadow, Gerald Robotnik, and the late Maria Robotnik who was Gerald Robotnik's daughter and Shadow's friend (Alyla Browne of “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga”).

Much of the plot depends upon massive screwups on the part of Guardian Units of Nations (G.U.N.). GUN screws up the initial capture of Shadow, and is responsible for the death of Maria. GUN is unable to contain Shadow and it also loses control of a highly illegal orbital weapons platform that threatens all life on earth. It is up to Sonic, Tails and Knuckles to clean up GUN's incompetence.

For some reason the movie spends quite a bit of time on a minor character, Agent Stone (Lee Majdoub, reprising his role) who doesn't really play an important part in the story. The story is an awkward mix of comedy and melodrama as it tries to make villains into heroes. It only half succeeds as a comedy and a melodrama. I would have preferred more comedy and less death, betrayal and anger. This film rates a C.

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