Sonic was a surprising hit in its opening weekend. The movie earned $101 million internationally and $70 million domestically giving it the best opening weekend ever for a video game movie. Sonic isn’t a great movie by any stretch, but it is a fun movie.

Ben Schwartz as the voice of Sonic is one of the best castings. He adds personality to Sonic and is funny when he needs to be. James Marsden who plays Tom Wachowski does fine and so does Tika Sumpter as Maddie Wachowski. The actors have good chesmistry and their relationship is believable. Jim Carrey as Dr. Ivo Robotnik is the most fun Jim Carrey has been in a long time. It is obvious Jim is just having fun in the role and it serves to make his character much more entertaining to watch.

What keeps this movie from being great is its writing. The writing for the movie is somewhat generic. Story beats in Sonic have been seen before many times in other movies and done better before.

Sonic was redesigned after fan backlash and the redesign definitely helps. If the studio kept the original design, the positive aspects would be buried. The redesign is faithful to the video games.

Sonic the Hedgehog is a fun movie that shouldn’t be taken seriously. It’s funny, with some enjoyable action sequences and some heartelt moments.