SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3

Name: SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3
Item: SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3
Author: Review

"The Light Shines in the Darkness"

Content: -1 Caution advised for older children, including teenagers, and sensitive adults.

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

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What You Need To Know:

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3 opens with a mysterious hedgehog with superpowers named Shadow escaping a military prison where he’s been held for 50 years. Shadow eventually teams up with Dr. Robotnik and Dr. Robotnik’s grandfather, who are both bent on revenge against Earth. They’re after a powerful weapon created by an international military and law enforcement agency protecting Earth from alien threats. Sonic and his friends, Knuckles and Tails, must stop them, but these adversaries are very powerful.

A flashback about Shadow interrupts the story in SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3. However, the flashback gives the movie a heartwarming twist. Also, the twist plays a major role in the movie’s spectacular, exciting, uplifting, redemptive ending. Thus, SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3 has a strong moral, redemptive worldview. It overtly promotes family, adoption, love, sacrifice, making good choices, and doing the right thing. The movie also has a positive reference to God and a beautiful sentiment about light overcoming death. SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3 provides plenty of thrills, laughs and heartwarming moments. Caution is advised for some violence and five relatively light expletives.

Content:

(BBB, CC, L, VV, N, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Very strong moral worldview with strong redemptive and allegorical twists promotes family, adoption, love, sacrifice, making good choices, and doing the right thing, plus one character twice says, “Vaya con Dios” (the phrase is translated correctly as “Go with God”), a spiritual metaphor about light is made for a line of dialogue about how a star in the night sky may have died but it’s light still shines;

Foul Language:

Three “d” obscenities, an a** obscenity, a character watches a silly Mexican Telenovela soap opera on TV where one character says the Spanish version of a seven-letter “b” obscenity, and a butt vulgarity;

Violence:

Lots of strong and light action and some comical violence includes an alien with superpowers breaks out of his glass prison and teleports multiple times to knock out soldiers shooting at him one by one and escape his prison, hero and his friends confront this alien in the streets of Tokyo and the alien uses the same technique to knock them down or send them flying, a chase ensues but the alien escapes again, a large explosion is viewed twice from a different perspective, characters with superpowers collide with one another, a man attacks a Santa Claus and knocks him into a Christmas tree, weapons are fired, a large explosion occurs in outer space at the end ;

Sex:

No sex;

Nudity:

Partial upper male nudity where comical villain is a sad and depressed couch potato watching television, and he slaps his fat bare belly;

Alcohol Use:

No alcohol use;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking or drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Two characters are out for revenge, but one of the characters repents and a third villain makes a joke about “all the possible genders.”

More Detail:

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3 introduces two new characters, a mysterious hedgehog with superpowers named Shadow and Dr. Robotnik’s grandfather, who are both bent on revenge against Earth, which is in danger of being destroyed unless Sonic and his friends can stop them. A flashback about Shadow interrupts the story in SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3, but the flashback gives the movie a heartwarming twist that plays a major role in the movie’s spectacular, exciting, uplifting, redemptive ending. MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for older pre-teenagers because of SONIC 3’s intense action violence and five obscenities.

The movie opens with the mysterious alien hedgehog, Shadow, breaking out of an interntional military prison in Tokyo. He’s upset to find out he’s been kept there for 50 years. Also, he recalls that 50 years ago, the first lab facility where he was being kept had an explosion that resulted in his imprisonment.

Cut to Sonic racing his friends, Knuckles and Tails, to see who’s the fastest. Sonic thinks he’s won, only to see Knuckles and Tails standing at the finish. However, their images turn out to be holograms. Sonic is perplexed but then finds out the race was just a ruse by his adoptive parents, Tom and Maddie, to celebrate the five-year anniversary of Sonic’s arrival on Earth.

Sonic, Knuckles and Tails get a call from Commander Walters of GUN, an international military and law enforcement agency protecting Earth from alien threats. He asks them to stop Shadow from causing havoc in the streets of Tokyo. During their fight, however, Shadow proves too strong for them and escapes.

Sonic and his friends meet Commander Walters in a Tokyo to find out more about Shadow. However, they’re attacked by robotic orbs that look like something their nemesis, Dr. Robotnik makes. Walters is seriously injured. However, before he passes out, he gives Sonic a key to a powerful weapon created by his agency, GUN.

Sonic, Knuckles and Tails visit Dr. Robotnik, who’s been sitting dejectedly watching a Mexican soap opera on TV. He’s dejected because Sonic and his friends have defeated him at every turn. However, now he’s upset because he’s discovered that someone’s using his technology, the robot orbs, without asking him.

The doctor agrees to help Sonic find the mystery villain, who seems to be working with Shadow. They travel to the ruins of the first lab facility where Shadow was kept 50 years ago. There, they run into Shadow and the mystery man helping him. The man turns out to be Dr. Robotnik’s grandfather, Gerald.

Overjoyed to see he still has family in the world, Dr. Robotnik betrays Sonic and his friends. He joins with Shadow and his grandfather.

Now, Sonic and his friends must get to the GUN headquarters in London, to get the second key to the powerful weapon before Shadow and Dr. Robotnik’s grandfather.

Meanwhile, a flashback reveals that, when Shadow was at the old lab facility, he befriended the daughter of one of the scientists there, a girl named Maria. The flashback shows that Shadow didn’t cause the explosion; it was an accident by one of the soldiers in the lab guarding Shadow. Sadly, Maria died in the explosion. So, Shadow has vowed revenge against the people of Earth ever since.

The rest of the story involves lots of excitement and unexpected twists.

The flashback to Shadow and Maria’s friendship interrupts the main plot in SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3. However, it’s a very powerful, heartwarming back story that affects the movie’s ending. The ending has lots of exiting action. It’s also a more expansive ending with higher stakes than the first two SONIC movies.

The flashback story adds a good deal of depth to the ending. The ending also has references to the positive values that Sonic’s adoptive father, Tom, teaches him earlier in the movie.

Thus, SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3 has a strong moral, redemptive worldview. It overtly promotes family, adoption, love, sacrifice, making good choices, and doing the right thing. Also, at one point, Dr. Robotnik surprisingly says, “Vaya con Dios” (the famous Spanish phrase is translated correctly as “Go with God”). The movie also has a heartfelt spiritual metaphor about light in a line of dialogue that’s repeated. The line occurs first when Shadow and Maria are admiring all the stars in the sky. Some of those stars have died, Maria says, but their light still shines.

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3 provides plenty of thrills, laughs and heartwarming moments. Caution is advised for children for some violence and five relatively light expletives.