Well that was interesting.
This is an oddball of a movie, for one it's not even an hour long and was actually comprised of two television specials aired in Japan combined to make this, so it's not even really a movie. It has a bare bones plot where Doctor Robotnik creates a robot Sonic and tricks our favorite blue hedgehog into a confrontation with the mechanical monster, but there's so much weird stuff that goes into it. Now I will give this "movie" some compliments, the animation is actually really really good. It is late 90s animation but with certain art designs and backgrounds that evoke more late 80s anime, it's quite well done and I see bits of Robotech, Castle In The Sky, and Dragonball Z. If I rated animated features on just looks alone this would get an 8/10! The action is at times awesome but only for brief moments. The music is totally rad and kickass but there's no mistaking what decade it came from, and honestly it was my favorite part of the entire thing. The voice acting is....bizarre. Tails sounds like he has the flu and is very nasal-y, Sonic is harboring on country bumpkin and truthfully sounds like if you mixed Major Kong from Dr. Strangelove, Sheriff J.W. Pepper from Live And Let Die, and Boomhauer from King Of The Hill and now I miss Jaleel White, and somehow I don't know how they got Edwin Neal our favorite psychotic hitchhiker from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to voice Doctor Robotnik. Hwhat?? But wait, there's more! The character designs for certain characters are well how can I say this nicely, ripped off. Sure Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Robotnik look exactly like they should but the original characters, specifically the president of the world and his daughter look incredibly familiar. The president looks like King Hippo from Punch-Out with a lavish general's outfit, and his daughter looks friggin' exactly like Mimi from Digimon. I mean...wow. God, this is such a strange thing to talk about cause there's no real way to understand what I'm talking about unless you see it for yourself. And the funny thing is I know I rented this from Blockbuster back in the day and never once picked up on any of this. In fact, the more I think about it I actually have been a bit of a Sonic fan in my life, I played the second game with my cousin on his Sega Genesis, I rented tapes of the cartoons, I woke up at 6:00 in the morning just to watch Sonic Underground even if there was no school, I played games on both my Gamecube and PS2, Sonic has been a part of my life in even just small ways for a long time and I can't make head or tails of this....I don't even know what to call it! It's not a movie, it's not a show, it's a two part special combined to make one product. It's just an odd little creation from the 90s that's sort of faded into obscurity, you can't even get a physical copy of this unless you find a tape but thankfully someone uploaded it to YouTube. It's really made for the most hardcore of Sonic fans or very young kids, I'd say from the ages of 5 to maybe 10 or 11. Rating wise if I'm being honest, I'd give it 2.5 stars, a decent 6/10. I actually can't believe this was the only thing close to a Sonic movie for the longest time, and while I have no clue what to expect from the new Sonic movie (I haven't even watched either trailer) if it turns out good I'll be surprised and give it a recommendation. But the track record of video game movies have definitely been more miss than hit, so we'll just have to wait and see what comes next. Until then speed demon fans.
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