Sonic the Hedgehog has been around for tens of years all the way back to 1991. He is an iconic character as the mascot of Sega and known by most. He has always stuck to his own series of games like Sonic Adventure, Sonic & Knuckles, and Sonic The Hedgehog. Yet in recent years, he has had his own movie series. Earlier, right before 2025 on December 20th, 2024, the third movie of this series came out, “Sonic the Hedgehog 3”.
In Sonic 3, it follows the plot of Knuckles, Tails, and Sonic living with their two human caretakers, Tom and Maddie. In this one, new characters were added to build the plot just like the past two movies. One of these new characters was a known rival of Sonic, Shadow the Hedgehog. Shadow is seen in several games of the Sonic franchise fighting against Sonic on Dr. Robotnik’s side. This movie is no different with that characteristic, but it does it a little differently. Deepening Shadow’s past and what it affected in his mind and life. Leading to the feature of two other characters in the movie, which was his best friend Maria and Robotnik’s grandpa Gerald Robotnik. Maria is used as a plot device for Shadows’ violent behavior throughout the movie as an antagonist. But Gerald is the main antagonist of this movie. Sonic has to go through a continuous fight against Gerald, Robotnik, and Shadow to successfully save the world from being destroyed.
Overall, the movie has easy-to-perceive emotional connections. Robotnik attempting to make a relationship with his grandfather; Shadow processing his grief for Maria that steers his purpose in his actions throughout the movie; Sonic learning he can’t do things on his own and needs to learn to lean back on Knuckles and Tails like a true team. These are just the main obvious ones but there are so many more mini moments of emotion in the movie that are impactful to the story. In the end, the movie itself is clearly thought out despite being a “kids movie”. It’s definitely worth watching for Sonic fans or people with casual interest in general!