Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022)
Video game adaptations have had a long and largely undistinguished relationship with the big screen, and Sega's most famous blue mascot was no exception to that tradition. The original Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) arrived trailing some of the most vocal pre-release backlash in recent memory (that infamous original character design still haunts the internet), yet it managed to win audiences over well enough to justify a sequel. Sonic the Hedgehog 2, released in April 2022, picks up where that first film left off, sending the supersonic hedgehog on a globe-trotting adventure to recover a powerful emerald before Dr. Robotnik can get his hands on it. The story introduces two of the most beloved characters from the long-running game franchise: Tails, the twin-tailed fox, and Knuckles, the red echidna who arrives firmly on the wrong side of things, at least to begin with. For fans who grew up with the Mega Drive originals or the later 3D instalments, seeing those characters rendered on screen was always going to carry a particular charge.
Jeff Fowler returns to direct, having made his feature debut with the first film after a career rooted in visual effects and short animation. He worked again with screenwriters John Whittington and Josh Miller and Pat Casey, the latter two having co-written the original, which gives the sequel a consistency of tone that sequels do not always manage to preserve. The production is a genuinely multinational affair: Paramount Pictures distributed it in partnership with Sega, while the visual work was shared across Original Film, Blur Studio, and Japanese animation house Marza Animation Planet, whose involvement brings a particular polish to the CG character work. Budgets for franchise entries of this scale are rarely confirmed in precise figures, but the step up in scope from the first film is visible in almost every frame, with the action sequences spread across multiple international locations and the digital character work notably more ambitious. It is the kind of sequel that is clearly working with more money and more confidence.
The cast around the animated characters is headed by James Marsden and Tika Sumpter, reprising their roles as Sonic's human family in Green Hills, though the headline additions are Idris Elba voicing Knuckles and Colleen O'Shaughnessey stepping into the role of Tails (a piece of casting that pleased the fanbase considerably, given her long history voicing the character in other Sega properties). Ben Schwartz continues as Sonic himself, bringing the same breathless, motor-mouthed energy he established in the first film. And then there is Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik, a performance that operates on its own frequency entirely.
On the craft side, cinematographer Brandon Trost shoots the live-action material with a bright, broad palette suited to the film's family-friendly energy, the kind of open, well-lit compositions that keep the frame feeling generous even during busier sequences. Tom Holkenborg, the composer known to audiences as Junkie XL, provides the score: his work here leans into punchy, kinetic orchestration, punctuated by the kind of electronic textures that feel at home alongside a franchise rooted in the sounds of early 1990s games hardware. Editor Jim May, who cut the first film as well, maintains the series' characteristic rhythm, keeping things moving at a clip without losing track of the character moments between the action. That continuity of creative team behind the camera is one of the less-remarked reasons the film feels so consistent in mood with its predecessor. For a sense of how animated franchises can handle similar tonal ambitions with very different results, it is worth looking at Macca's take on Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), a film operating in related territory but at a rather different level of formal ambition.
For years "video game movie" was basically a warning label, shorthand for something cynical and half-watchable.
What I like about the Sonic films is how quietly they have shrugged that reputation off, and this second one, again directed by Jeff Fowler, is every bit as much fun as the first. It gets the thing the games always had and most adaptations fumble: speed, colour, and a sense of play. Even a small touch like Dr Robotnik's egg-shaped little flying machine, lifted straight out of the games, had me grinning like the kid who used to play them.
The new arrivals earn their keep too. Idris Elba brings a lovely deadpan heft to Knuckles, Colleen O'Shaughnessy's Tails is sweet without tipping into cloying, and the trio bounce off one another exactly as they should. Then there is Jim Carrey, who treats Robotnik as a licence to go gloriously, rubber-faced big; he is having the time of his life and it is infectious. When the film lets these three off the leash, the action set-pieces take flight, and the best of them carry the same giddy, time-bending wit as Quicksilver's showstoppers in the later X-Men films, which from me is high praise.
If there is a drag, it is the one that nagged at the first film as well: the human subplot. Every time the story wanders off to check in on James Marsden and his family, the air goes out of the room, and you sit there willing it back to the blue blur. It is a familiar flaw and an avoidable one. Even so, when a film delivers this reliably on what its fans actually showed up for, I can forgive the odd lull, and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a bright, good-hearted blast that matches its predecessor step for step. Three and a half stars, and I will be there for the third.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 sits comfortably as a polished but unremarkable piece of franchise filmmaking that manages to do the thing franchise filmmaking most often fails at: it remembers why people cared in the first place. Whether it represents a ceiling or a stepping stone for the series is a question the third film will answer, but as an argument that video game adaptations can be made with genuine affection and not just commercial calculation, it makes its case cleanly enough. Some films know exactly what they are, and are all the better for it.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 2022 | Watched: 2026-08-13
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Paramount+ Amazon Channel · ITVX Premium
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Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: Netflix · Paramount Plus Premium · Paramount Plus Essential · Philo
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Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
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