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Sonic the Hedgehog[4] is a 2020 action-adventure superhero comedy film adaptation based on the Sonic the Hedgehog video game franchise by Sega. The film is directed by Jeff Fowler in his directorial debut and written by Patrick Casey and Josh Miller.[5][6] The film features Ben Schwartz as the voice of the film's titular hero, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik, alongside James Marsden and Tika Sumpter. The film features a blue alien hedgehog named Sonic the Hedgehog, who can move at supersonic speeds, teams up with a small-town sheriff Tom Wachowski to stop the government scientist Dr. Robotnik, who will stop at nothing to catch him for the world domination.
Initially, Sony Pictures acquired the film rights to Sonic the Hedgehog from Sega in 2013, before officially giving the film green-light at a private joint Sega/Sony Pictures press conference announcing the film on 10 June 2014, with Fowler subsequently hired to direct in 2016.[6][8] The film then languished in pre-production for several years, mostly due to executive turnover at Sony and budgeting disputes, before being put into turnaround and then picked up by Paramount in October 2017.[9] Most of the cast had signed on for the project by August in 2018. Filming shooting took place between July and October in 2018 in Vancouver, Ladysmith and elsewhere on Vancouver Island, Canada.
Sonic the Hedgehog was initially set to be released in November 2019; however, due to the negative reception of the movie's first trailer that debuted at the end of April 2019, it was delayed to 14 February 2020 so that Paramount could redesign the film's titular character.[2][10] The film premiered in early 2020 worldwide, with a later release in China and Korea due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It received mixed-to-positive reviews, with critics praising the performances (particularly those of Schwartz and Carrey), Sonic's design, and its faithfulness to the source material; however, they criticized its plot for its perceived lack of originality.[11][12] Nonetheless, the film set the record for the biggest opening weekend for a video game film in the United States and Canada.[13] It grossed over $319.7 million worldwide,[14] becoming the second highest-grossing film of 2020, and the currently highest-grossing video game film adaptation of all time in North America.[15] The film returned to theaters on 21 August 2020 for a limited time.[16] A sequel, titled Sonic the Hedgehog 2, was released on 8 April 2022 in the United States.[17]
The film opens in San Francisco, California, where a seemingly normal day is interrupted by a shockingly unexpected spectacle: an anthropomorphic hedgehog with blue fur, white gloves and red shoes is running through the city at breathtaking speed while a flying machine piloted by a mustached scientist dressed in red gives chase and fires explosive energy blasts. In the middle of the chase, there is a pause as the hedgehog, named Sonic, begins to narrate what is currently happening and rewinds to the very beginning, recalling his childhood days living on a beautiful island in another world with palm trees, waterfalls, and even loop-de-loops made of soil. He remembers running joyously across the island every day, relishing in life and making full, open use of his natural-born powers despite being told to keep them secret by his doting guardian, Longclaw the Owl.
A then young Sonic rushes home to the treehouse where Longclaw is resting and playfully bumps into her to wake her up. Longclaw warns Sonic that he might have been noticed because of his coveted powers, but Sonic is not concerned, saying he was too fast to be seen. But as he affectionately presents a sunflower to her as a gift (a gesture that touches the owl), they are ambushed by a tribe of echidna warriors. Her fears realized, Longclaw desperately flies away with Sonic, only for one of the echidnas to fire his arrow and successfully strike her, causing her to plummet to the ground with Sonic still clinging to her. Though injured, Longclaw reminds Sonic of the importance of keeping himself and his powers hidden, and uses a golden Ring to open a portal to a planet on the far side of the universe, called Earth. She gives the rest of the Rings to Sonic in a small bag and tells him to flee to Earth, where he will be safe. The reluctant Sonic runs through the portal while Longclaw stays behind to hold off the approaching echidnas. Seeing her in danger, Sonic desperately runs back to try to save her, but the portal disintegrates just before he can reach her, leaving him heartbroken, devastated, and alone.
10 years later, Sonic, now a teenager, has adjusted to life on Earth. Tom Wachowski, the local sheriff of Green Hills, Montana, is sitting bored in an empty speed trap, waiting for cars, and Sonic playfully messes with him by zipping past his radar gun at ridiculous speeds. Getting out to investigate, Tom discovers one of Sonic's blue quills lying by a small opening in the long grass and brings it with him as he is called away by his deputy, Wade Whipple, to address a minor issue back in town. Nearby, Sonic saves a turtle from being run over by an approaching car and takes it for a wild ride before leaving it and zipping back to a hidden cave, which he has turned into a makeshift home. Sonic seems to love his life, since he has great fun with the discarded items from the outside world he uses to occupy himself and feels safe since he knows to escape to one of the worlds depicted on a map included in the bag of Rings, should he ever be discovered - specifically, an uninhabited world full of giant mushrooms. He hates the idea, but he is not worried, since Green Hills feels like a home to him. He frequents the town every day and secretly observes the people, his favorites of whom are Tom (or "Donut Lord", as he calls him for his tendency to talk to and eat donuts), and his veterinarian wife Maddie, whom he nicknames "Pretzel Lady" for her yoga flexibility. He also likes to mess with old, eccentric Crazy Carl, the only person in town who actually knows about him and is constantly trying in vain to catch him so he can prove his existence to the townspeople, since they laugh off his claims of a "Blue Devil". Having formed a strong bond with Tom and Maddie from afar, Sonic often hangs out around their house, especially on movie nights. But even with this fun place and all of these so-called "friends" of his, Sonic still feels very lonely in his self-imposed isolation and fears that he will spend the rest of his life alone.
After coming home one night to find raccoons in his trash can, much to his annoyance, Tom receives from Maddie his long-awaited letter of acceptance into the San Francisco Police Department, and the two discuss the difficult decision to move away from Green Hills, yet Tom is certain that the move is his chance to do more than simple odd jobs as Sheriff of Green Hills and actually save lives. The next day, as Tom recites his departure speech to a donut, Sonic observes the local youth baseball playoffs and sees a young baseball batter high-five his teammates. That night, Sonic goes into the vacant baseball field and plays by himself, using his speed to assume the roles of all the players. He manages to make a perfect play and rejoices, holding his hand up for a high-5, but when he looks around and sees that no one is there to cheer him on, he realizes he is truly alone forever. In his despair, he tries to work off the pain by running desperately around the field, but his sadness only turns to anger and frustration at his situation, his emotions building and causing electricity to emit from his body. Eventually, it becomes too much and he lets loose an anguished scream, the energy within him exploding outward into a massive electromagnetic pulse that knocks out power across the entire Pacific Northwest. Immediately after, Sonic becomes worried that he may have just revealed himself with his outburst and dashes off, hoping no one noticed. Meanwhile, much to the contrary, Wade is left to deal with several phone calls to Green Hills' police station, as the town is completely in the dark. Concerned, he contacts Tom, who starts to give him instructions but ends the call prematurely when he sees the quill he discovered earlier glowing with an electric blue light.
News of the event soon reaches the Pentagon, and Commander Walters of Defense enlists the help of brilliant roboticist and scientific genius, Dr. Robotnik, to discover the cause; in spite of everyone disliking his egotistical and eccentric nature, he is the best man for the job. After Robotnik and his partner, Agent Stone, take charge of the military detachment stationed at the baseball field, Robotnik's flying, high-tech, egg-shaped drones head into the forest, where one of them finds a footprint from Sonic and scans it; Robotnik discovers that his computer can't find a single match in Earth's animal kingdom to identify the creature responsible for the print, a fact that catches his interest. As the military troops and the drones search the forest for him, Sonic, realizing that he had just blown his cover, rushes back to his cave to collect his valuables and prepares to leave Earth forever. But just before he can use the Rings to save himself, the troops and drones draw close to his cave and Sonic flees to avoid them, sentimentally bidding goodbye to his cave.
Meanwhile, Tom is on the phone with Maddie, who has flown out to San Francisco to check out their future house, as well as to visit her sister Rachel (who dislikes Tom) and niece Jojo. As Tom tells Maddie about the blackout, he hears a disturbance and sees his trash can toppled over. Thinking the raccoons are back, Tom takes Maddie's tranquilizer gun, ends the call abruptly (which gives Rachel enough reason to suggest to Maddie that she should divorce him), and goes out to investigate the shed. The noise turns out to be Sonic, who broke into the shed so he would have a safe place to use one of his Rings. As he prepares to do so, Tom bursts into the shed and sees him. Both of them scream in terror at the sight of each other, and Tom fires a dart into Sonic's leg. The weakening Sonic sees a picture of San Francisco's Transamerica Pyramid on Tom's T-shirt, and as he drops his Ring, it opens a portal above the actual building itself. Collapsing to the floor, Sonic accidentally drops the bag of Rings into the portal, and it lands on the building's roof. The portal thusly closes as Sonic passes out, leaving Tom severely confused at everything that just transpired.