Have you ever wondered how the government knew it was Sonic who caused the power outage that set the first Sonic the Hedgehog film in motion? Or why they hired the dastardly Dr. Ivo Robotnik to find him? It’s almost like they knew there were anthropomorphic alien hedgehogs on Earth.
That’s because before there was Sonic, there was Shadow.
Unlike Sonic, Shadow didn’t come to Earth through a magic, golden ring. He never got to watch humans consuming donuts and playing baseball from the safety of a cave in Green Hills, Montana. And he certainly never got the chance to discover what a loving family looked like.
No, Shadow landed in a meteor crash and was swept up by government forces shortly thereafter. He watched humans from behind a glass tube as they experimented on him and exploited his powers. And while he did find a friend in Maria, the granddaughter of the lead scientist on the project, she was killed in an explosion, and Shadow bore the blame.
Well, Shadow has been held in stasis for the last 50 years in a top-secret facility. He’s been stewing in his anger the entire time, hoping for the opportunity to enact his revenge. So when a familiar face sets him free with a plan to do just that, Shadow doesn’t hesitate: He unleashes chaos on the world.
It’ll take the combined forces of Team Sonic to stop Shadow. But if Sonic doesn’t watch himself, listen to his friends and finally learn how to work on a team, he may just go down the same dark path that Shadow once did.
Sonic and his friends, Knuckles and Tails, are still learning how to work as a team. Sonic can be impulsive. Knuckles just wants to break things. And it’s all Tails can do to keep the other two in line. But the teammates (and best friends) never give up. Even when one of them loses his way for a while, the other two support him and get him back on the right path, reminding him of what is right. Each anthropomorphic creature is willing to put his own life on the line to save his friends and the world. And after a bit of trial and error, the teammates realize they’re a lot stronger when they put their powers together than when they go it alone.
Sonic learns that being a team leader isn’t about having the team named after him or even being in charge. Rather, it’s about encouraging his friends to do their best, rallying the team to work together and trusting his teammates to make the right choices.
[Spoiler Warning] After seeing the friendship between Sonic and the others, Shadow begins to question whether the best way to honor Maria’s memory is to completely annihilate the world. Sonic shares with Shadow how he lost his mentor, Longclaw, after she sacrificed herself to save him. He tells Shadow the pain never goes away. But the love they shared was stronger than that pain, he adds, and it still remains, even though she is gone. Shadow eventually realizes the same is true of Maria. And he takes Sonic’s advice (imparted on Sonic by his foster father, Tom) to not let his anger consume him and change who he is. Two bad guys, realizing the error of their ways, make amends by sacrificing themselves to save the world. Many characters apologize for mistakes they’ve made. We’re told that it’s never too late to do the right thing.
Sonic, Knuckles, Tails and Shadow are all aliens from other planets, and each has his own unique set of skills. Sonic is super fast and creates electricity when he runs. Knuckles has super strength. Tails can fly by spinning his tail. And Shadow can teleport and create “chaos energy.”
Sonic activates the Master Emerald, a mystical object that turns thought into reality and makes the user “godlike.” However, after a fight with the much stronger Shadow, the emerald splits, allowing Shadow to activate a few of the shards for himself.
Knuckles becomes frightened while watch Casper with his friends, stating that there’s no such thing as a “friendly ghost.” Someone says, “Go with God.”
Dr. Ivo Robotnik says that he is unappealing “to all possible genders.” Someone rips a man’s shirt off (exposing the guy’s chest), telling him to use the material to fix a suit. After learning about a long-lost family member, Ivo asks, “Who did what with whom?”
A telenovela features a woman in a cleavage-baring dress who has fallen in love with twin brothers. A man briefly ogles another woman in front of his wife.
We’re shown how Shadow was targeted by the government after authorities determined that his chaos energy was too dangerous to be left unchecked. They sent soldiers into the facility where he was being held to arrest him. Instead, the lead scientist on the project, Dr. Gerald Robotnik (Ivo’s and Maria’s grandfather), tried to help Shadow escape. The soldiers fired their weapons, causing an explosion that killed Maria (whom we see lying lifelessly on the ground).
Those events fuel Shadow’s and Gerald’s anger and vengeance. So, they plot to destroy the world with a giant cannon powered by Shadow’s chaos energy.
Sonic and his friends battle Shadow throughout Sonic the Hedgehog 3, usually causing quite a bit of destruction in the process. (It should be noted that they try to reason with Shadow more than once.) Gerald uses drones to fire missiles at Sonic’s team while they’re dining in a children’s restaurant. People fire weapons in other scenes, too. Two characters use robotic appendages to fight each other. When one falls off a bridge, the other stomps on his fingers to make him fall. However, he’s rescued by Tails, and he knocks his opponent into a stream of chaos energy, which incinerates the man.
Simulations show how force fields and lasers could kill Sonic. Ivo shoves his grandfather into such lasers, but the man is spared a gruesome death by his laser-deflecting suit (although Ivo admits he wasn’t sure if the suits would work or not). Sonic and Shadow fight off several missile-firing drones.
There are many perilous moments throughout the film. Among them, Team Sonic is nearly sucked into a black hole. While stopping Gerald’s space cannon, two characters pass out and begin falling to Earth, but they’re narrowly saved by a friend. Sonic’s friends are nearly crushed by falling rubble (which he saves them from).
Shadow attacks Tom, Sonic’s foster father, mistaking him for the man who locked him up after Maria’s death. He shows some remorse when he realizes his mistake, but he doesn’t apologize. Tom survives, but it’s a very near thing.
Two characters seemingly perish while moving Gerald’s cannon away from the Earth as the weapon explodes.
Sonic is shocked to learn that Ivo Robotnik is still alive, since the events of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 had led him to believe the evil scientist had perished. Characters are otherwise punched, elbowed and tackled. A man crashes his bike. Shadow says a television character should kill two men fighting over her since she’s not a prize to be won.
Gerald imagines blowing up a government building using his cannon. The cannon actually hits the moon, slicing off a good third of the satellite.
A post-credits scene shows Sonic fending off robotic hedgehogs shooting at him.
We hear one to two uses each of “a–,” “b–tard,” “d–n” and “h—.” God’s name is misused three times, and someone also says, “Holy crap.”
Insults and mean names are hurled throughout the film, including “Ro-butt-stink” and “Dorkupine.”
None.
Several bad guys double-cross the people they are working with. One man is unable to let go of his anger and his plot for revenge—to his own peril. Ivo Robotnik is deeply hurt when the only family he has ever known rejects him.
We learn that two bad guys were blamed for an explosion that took human lives. However, it’s later revealed they weren’t directly responsible, and that they were simply trying to escape wrongful imprisonment.
We hear several flatulence sounds in a row as a man adds condiments to his food. A guy laments that his weight gain has caused him to develop “man boobs.” He then slaps his exposed belly like bongo drums.
A woman acts belligerently, threatening to get a man fired so he’ll give her what she wants. There’s a reference to Mr. and Mrs. Smith, though it’s unclear if they mean the PG-13 rated film or the TV-MA rated TV series.
Sonic causes a couple of blackouts.
If your child likes fast-paced action adventures about spiky blue hedgehogs based on video games, then you probably went and saw the previous two Sonic films already and more or less know what to expect here.
There are some good messages here about the power of love over hate. Sonic repeatedly tells the Robotniks and Shadow that it’s never too late to do the right thing. And when his own anger threatens to take over, he sagely states: “There are no winners with revenge.”
Sonic’s actions demonstrate how the love we have for our family and friends is stronger than the hatred we feel for our enemies. And a few characters embrace this truth, even sacrificing themselves to save millions of others.
But there’s some flashy violence that might upset younger or sensitive viewers. A few characters perish onscreen. And even though Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is rated PG, there were more profanities than I would have thought appropriate.
Some families may be OK with those elements, but I still think Sonic the Hedgehog 3 deserves a little note of caution before your family potentially chooses to see it.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
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