3 minute read
Film Reviews
Sonic the Hedgehog
By David Vicari
When I see that a movie coming out is based on a video game, my PTSD from sitting through video game-inspired movies during the '90s, like Mortal Kombat, Street Fighte+r or Super Mario Bros. begins to itch. That's why it was a relief that Sonic the Hedgehog, based on the Sega video game, is a diverting little comedy.
Sonic, a blue alien hedgehog (voiced by Ben Schwartz) who has supersonic speed, escapes to Earth and lives a quiet life in a forest on the outskirts of a small Montana town. Eventually, he is discovered, and crazed scientist Dr. Ivo Robotnik (Jim Carrey in fine scenery-chewing form) is brought in to catch and dissect him. Sonic needs to retrieve his bag of magic gold rings, which allow him to transport to different places. To complete this task, the blue extraterrestrial seeks the help from the local sheriff, Tom Wachowski (James Marsden).
First-time feature director Jeff Fowler's movie is colorful, and the computergenerated Sonic (redesigned after massive backlash when the original trailer dropped) is an endearing character.
A scene at a roadhouse bar, where Sonic is shown in slowed down mode tripping up a bunch of yahoos, isn't as funny or clever as the Quicksilver time in a bottle sequence in X-Men: Days of Future Past, but—no pun intended—Sonic the Hedgehog moves at a fast past and if one gag doesn't work, the next one will.
For all its visual gags and effects, the best part of Sonic is that it crackles with funny dialog. Yes, it's the amusing back-and-forth between the characters that makes this work. Who knew?
Downhill
By Fritz Esker
I was not as enamored with the 2014 Swedish film Force Majeure as many critics were, so I hoped that its American remake, Downhill, might be more appealing. However, Downhill sadly does not improve upon Force Majeure. In directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash’s film, Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus play a married couple vacationing at an Alpine ski resort with their two sons. During a controlled avalanche that briefly gets scary, Ferrell runs away while his
60 Spring Restaurant Guide | Where Y'at Magazine family cowers at their table. Louis-Dreyfus and the sons quietly resent Ferrell for it, and he tries to act like it was no big deal.
At 86 minutes (including ending credits), Downhill still manages to seem padded. It feels like there could have been a good 30-minute short film from its basic premise (I felt the same way about the considerably longer original, too), but not enough to sustain a feature film. There is one excellent scene where Louis-Dreyfus finally calls out Ferrell while they eat dinner with another couple. But aside from a few scattershot laughs, the surrounding scenes aren’t funny enough to work as a comedy and aren’t raw enough to work as a domestic drama.
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