Sonic the Hedgehog 3 had its official premiere in London yesterday, December 10. While full reviews won’t be out until closer to the movie’s December 20 launch, early impressions are trickling out on social media from people who attended early screenings. It sounds like the Year of Shadow is ending on a high note, as several critics and fans are calling the third movie the best in the series yet.
Several early impressions state that while Sonic 3 is still a family-friendly film with the same “cringe” jokes as previous entries, it also feels like it’s made for fans of the series’ darker stories. This makes sense given it centers on Shadow the Hedgehog, an angsty character who has been Sonic’s deepest well for the more anime-inspired melodrama of the early 2000s.
While I was wary of Jim Carrey’s performance as both Doctor Robotnik and his grandfather Gerald potentially portraying the latter as a joke character rather than the sympathetic mad scientist villain he is in the games, early viewers said that the villain’s story is a surprising, heartfelt standout. The Washington Post’s Gene Park said there’s more Carrey in this film than the previous two, which makes sense given he plays two characters who spend a lot of time interacting. Hopefully this means that Gerald isn’t just a series of gags and that Carrey is able to explore some of the grief that has been central to the character since his debut in the games.
But Carrey as Robotnik is a known quantity after two films. The big question is: How does Keanu Reeves fair as Sonic’s brooding rival Shadow? Early viewers say the Matrix star is “amazing” in the film and “perfectly” captures his essence. It also sounds like the film takes a lot of time with his story and focuses less on the human characters who have typically been a divisive element of the series, receiving criticism for the amount of screentime they took up in the previous films and especially in the Knuckles show that launched on Paramount+ this year.
Beyond that, several of the early impressions mention that the film’s mid-credits scene is a big surprise. We already know that whatever the scene entails is meant to set up the next movie and we have some theories, but some of them depend on whether or not Sonic 3 is hiding some characters from its trailers, as some fans are speculating.
We’ll have our own review of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 up next week when the movie is out, but for now, you can check out our review of Sonic X Shadow Generations.