Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) / YMMV

Adorkable:
- Knuckles turns out to be this, especially at the end, due to his unfamiliarity with Earth's culture and his childlike glee at winning baseball and learning that ice cream has sprinkles at the end of the movie. The fans were quite endeared by this aspect of his character in the film, many of them comparing him to Drax the Destroyer or Starfire.
- Tails. He is the same nerdy yet adorable and kind-hearted Gadgeteer Genius as always, but this movie also shows how much he looks up to Sonic, with him fanboying over Sonic and being very excited to finally meet him.
Alternative Character Interpretation:
- The somber look on Knuckles' father's face as he forbids him from accompanying the clan to war. Is it because he doesn't like barring his son from going with him but has to do it anyway, or is it because this might be the last time he sees his son at all?
- When Agent Stone is locking up the coffee shop to set up the secret lab, he changes the health inspection rating sign from an A to F-. Is this a ruse to deflect people away from the lab, or has Stone managed the shop so poorly that he needs to hide his actual rating with a fake A when in service? Or does he change it purely for the sake of making a "bad" impression on Robotnik when he returns and sees his faithful aide has spurned government protocols?
- Sonic being far more conservative with his powers in the sequel. Is it a combination of his young age and an unfocused mind causing a legitimate case of Forgot About His Powers? Or did Tom’s words to Sonic on the boat resonate with Sonic, causing him to be more cautious about when and how he uses his power?
Aluminum Christmas Trees: Mushroom coffee is a real thing, in spite of how absurd the movie makes it seem.
- Judging by Stone's reaction to being told the coffee “could use some mushroom”, it would seem that coffee afficionados consider it to be a high-crime against coffee.
Angst? What Angst?: Sonic grew up with the knowledge that the echidnas drove him from his homeworld and killed Longclaw, yet when one shows up on his doorstep, Sonic doesn't react with fear or anger brought on by traumatic memories. He does bring up the incident later on during his battle with Knuckles in Siberia, but it still doesn't affect him much, nor does it stop him from saving Knuckles from drowning and eventually befriending the echidna.
Awesome Art: While Tails explains the history of the Master Emerald, the movie shifts into a beautiful 2D animated style to illustrate the story.
Awesome Music:
- "Kid Cudi's Stars in the Sky" is a soft yet energetic and upbeat melody, with its lyrics centering on how Sonic has found a home, with friends and family, after being alone in the world for so long.
- Stephane Legar's Speed Life (exclusive to the French version of the film) is a fun beat that lifts the main chorus of Rockwell's Somebody's Watching Me.
- From Tom Holkenborg's Score:
  - "Sinster" the track that plays when Robotnik builds the Giant Eggman Robot is an eerie and bombastic tune that even features the Death Egg Robot leitmotif at the end.
  - "Okay, We're Not Friends" is an appropriately epic track for the debut of Super Sonic!
- While sadly not in the film proper, the orchestrated rearrangement of Sonic the Hedgehog 2's Emerald Hill first heard in the logo reveal is short but incredibly sweet to hear.
  - Here's what seems to be the full version ripped from this Mexican interview promoting the film.
- The official trailer features a combination of "Age Of Heroes" by Really Slow Motion and another glorious orchestral remix of Emerald Hill.
- Robotnik's rampage through Green Hills is set to Pantera's "Walk".
Catharsis Factor:
- Rachel, who Took a Level in Kindness from the first film and Took a Level in Badass in this movie, gets even with Commander Walters by scaring him into surrendering by shooting a nearby cake with Tails' gun, which surprises even her with how destructive it is. Considering how her wedding was just a setup to capture Sonic, that scene is very satisfying and makes you cheer for Rachel.
  Rachel: Hell hath no fury like a bride scorned!
- Seeing Walters Bound and Gagged and forced to see that Tom and Maddie were ultimately right makes it very satisfying after witnessing his Smug Snake antics.
- Knuckles punching Robotnik in the groin, sending the Master Emerald flying out of him, is The Dog Bites Back at its most cathartic.
Continuity Lock-Out: A minor example, but reading the prequel comic is essential to understand who those masked warriors that attack Robotnik at the start of the movie are, as well as how Stone acquired his coffee shop and had so much access to Robotnik's tech in there.
Critical Dissonance: While critics were largely just as mixed on it as they were the previous film, general audiences and especially fans, find it to be an Even Better Sequel to the first film. This is most evident on Rotten Tomatoes, which has a critic rating of 69%, while the audience rating is a much higher 96%.
Crosses the Line Twice: In a deleted scene, when Stone tells Robotnik that the government had frozen all of his funding, Robotnik steals the crowdfunding account of a man in a full-body cast trying to pay his hospital bills, Robotnik poorly pasting a cut-out of his face onto the photo. Even worse, the page had made exactly 0 out of the $1,000,000 needed, only for money to come flooding in after Robotnik commandeers it.
Even Better Sequel: The film is largely considered to be an improvement over the first film by many critics and especially by fans, due to introducing a lot more elements from the games on top of its larger scope and more inventive action sequences.
Evil Is Cool:
- Robotnik is once again very stylish, incredibly competent and effective in spite of his goofy antics, and of course, charmingly hammy.
- While Knuckles isn’t really evil, he’s nonetheless an incredibly powerful and competent threat to Sonic who manages to keep the Blue Blur on the ropes in most of their fights.
Fan Nickname:
- The movie's title is often called "the Sonic 2 movie" or the "Sonic Movie 2" in order to obviously avoid confusion with the video game of the same name.
  - Also owing to the movie being the Sonic movie's first sequel which includes Knuckles, some fans called this film Sonic the Movie 2 & Knuckles.
- Many have taken to calling Robotnik's Master Emerald empowered form "Master Robotnik/Eggman".
Friendly Fandoms: Shares this with Top Gun: Maverick, being another Paramount tentpole blockbuster released roughly around the same time, aimed at a similar general audience demographic, and being massive successes. Both films are also seen as having averted Sequelitis. It also helps that After Burner, another Sega franchise, was inspired by Top Gun.
- Despite the Fandom Rivalry, fans of this and the first film have some overlap with The Super Mario Bros. Movie, with many hoping the trend of good video game movies continues. Hilariously, both films involve a wedding being wrecked in some way.
Genius Bonus:
- One of Tails' most useful inventions creates hologram duplicates of himself. Tails is based on (and intended to be) a kitsune, multi-tailed foxes from Japanese folklore that are known for creating illusions.
- Robotnik's comparison of friendship to the mathematical equation of "x squared times the hypotenuse of y squared divided by the absolute value of friendship equals dookie" is actually nearly correct assuming the bad doctor means to equate "friendship" to zero, nothing, or having no value. This causes a division by zero, which has no solution and can be expressed by "dookie" as Robotnik puts it, while any other value for "friendship" would provide an actual answer.
  - The only place the equation falls apart is if x equals zero, which would then cause the indeterminate form of zero divided by zero, which can have any single potential solution (or in other words, if x*0=0, x can be anything). This could actually be corrected very simply by changing it to "x squared plus...", as squaring the variables forces them to be greater or equal to zero, while making y a geometric length keeps it from equaling zero, so adding them together would provide a positive number for the numerator no matter what values x and y have, well, assuming that imaginary and complex numbers are disallowed.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- When Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was first announced, the movie and logo highlighted Tails' involvement, what with two tails sprouting from the bright yellow "2" in the logo. When the official trailer was released, it spotlighted the arrival of a certain red echidna as well, making this movie Sonic the Hedgehog 2 & Knuckles.
- After Tom plays Volleyball with Randall, Maddie comes to see how Tom is getting along with Randall. When Tom comments on seeing Randall and his friends spraying Randall with champagne, Tom and Maddie have this exchange which may bring to mind the teaser poster for the first movie, showing what appeared to be the muscular legs of what would go on to be Ugly Sonic:
  Tom: Don't you think Sonic should have that?
  Maddie: Muscles?
  Tom: Control yourself.
- With both characters being voiced by Ben Schwartz, Sonic is not the only blue character who needs to learn what it takes to be the real hero as Leonardo going through the same deal in Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie.
- In the run-up to the film, the Official Twitter account posted the question of whether Keanu Reeves would choose the blue or red quill. Recent revelations about the sequel shows us that he ultimately chose the Black quill and is voicing Shadow.
Ho Yay:
- Much like the first film, plenty of fans took to Robotnik and Stone's interactions as quite shippable. Several moments especially seem to move the relationship from simply subtext to just text, to the point it feels intentional.
  - Agent Stone is reintroduced working as a barista, making a foam art design of Robotnik (in his previous look)... and then the customer that the coffee belongs to gets annoyed and swishes the design away with a spoon and calls him "weirdo". All set to Norah Jones' "Don't Know Why" playing in the background.
  - When he learns of Dr. Robotnik's return, Agent Stone is ecstatic — though he's the only one happy about his return.
    Stone: HE'S BACK!!!
  - When he sees Robotnik return, what's the first thing he does after getting his suit back on? Make another foam art design of both him and Robotnik with little hearts!
  - Later, Agent Stone is preparing Dr. Robotnik's wardrobe on his computer screen in a dress-up-game-style interface. One of the possible outfits is just Robotnik in his underwear with the hearts, and another is a picture of Robotnik in a French Maid outfit.
  - When Robotnik is flying away to his newly built Death Egg Robot, Agent Stone comes rushing out of the Mean Bean and begs to be taken with him, with the doctor bringing him along with no hesitation.
    Stone: DOCTOR! TAKE ME WITH YOU!
  - At the very least, it's Stone being in a Transparent Closet from the audience's perspective, if not in-universe. What Robotnik feels in return (if anything) is very much an unanswered question, but given that he appears to hold everything except himself in contempt, it's arguably unrequited.
- On another note, in Hawaii, Tom is seen playing a game of volleyball with Randall and his groomsmen who are all later revealed to be G.U.N. agents, in a Shout-Out to the volleyball scene from Top Gun which seems to play on the Ho Yay from said scene.
I Knew It!: Many fans predicted that Shadow the Hedgehog would show up in The Stinger, due to G.U.N. being part of the story and the "3" in the logo for the upcoming third film being the same shade of red as Shadow's quill streaks.
Just Here for Godzilla:
- Numerous fans are watching it for the introduction of Tails and Knuckles, especially the latter and Idris Elba's voice acting as him.
- Much like the first movie, there were quite a few people that watched just to see Jim Carrey Chewing the Scenery as Robotnik once again, particularly with the news that it could be his last acting role.
Memetic Badass: Tom has started to receive this reputation due to his tendency to just punch out anyone who's in his way of those he needs to help (Eggman twice in the first film, and in this film, Randall as well as a few GUN agents), with people starting to jokingly assume he'd punch out any antagonist that shows up in the third film or even possibly punch out Shadow himself to stop him from performing any possibly evil or Anti-Hero tendencies.
Memetic Mutation: See here.
Moe: Tails is just as cute in the film as he is in the games. His heart-to-heart with Sonic at the Russian bar and their cuddling by the fireplace is particularly adorable.
Most Wonderful Sound: Idris Elba as Knuckles, which helped fuel the "Sexy Knuckles" meme.
Older Than They Think: This isn't the first time Robotnik has gained powers from Chaos Energy. In the climax of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog's Chaos Emerald arc, he used the four Chaos Emeralds to become Supreme High Robotnik. He also became God Robotnik in Sonic the Comic when he harnessed the power of the seven Chaos Emeralds, and had to be defeated by Sonic and Knuckles teaming up and the latter stripping him of his power. Twice.
Padding:
- One of the criticisms of the film is that the time dedicated to Rachel's wedding goes on for far too long, and that Rachel herself, while getting time to shine and kick butt alongside Maddie, is barely involved with the main plot alongside Randall, with the two not even interacting with Sonic and Tails, or even seeing Robotnik and Knuckles. While a lot is done to make it comedic, advance the plot and give the human characters focus, and show that Rachel Took a Level in Kindness, many fans felt that the wedding subplot overstayed its welcome a bit, and Rachel's part of the story was largely irrelevant to the movie overall.
- The Russian bar scene gets this as well. While the scene itself is important to establish Sonic's and Tails's new friendship, and the Dance-Off is pretty fun, it's dragged a bit longer than it needs to be, blatantly to fill the movie runtime.
Questionable Casting: Fans were more than a bit surprised at Idris Elba being cast to voice Knuckles, and a lot of fans decried the movie for doing this, especially since the producers brought back Tails' current VA, Colleen O'Shaughnessey, to voice Tails (as she did in The Stinger of the first film). However, once the film was released, Elba was praised for his performance, with a more serious edge than the other characters while still providing strong comedic timing when necessary.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Due to taking a level in both kindness and badass, Rachel has gained quite a few more fans.
Salvaged Story:
- While the first film managed to emerge a success and was well-liked overall, despite its rocky first impression with the original look of Sonic, it ultimately still boiled down to a rather standard family-film-road-trip plot just with the blue hedgehog and very little of the games' mythology directly in the plot. This film brings in a lot more elements from the games and has them as the overall focus (Robotnik's Truer to the Text outfit and badniks, the Chaos and Master Emeralds, the echidna tribe, etc.) while still respecting to the established world and human relations set up in the first film, even linking them to the games with the formation of G.U.N.
- A good chunk of the human side characters (i.e. Agent Stone and Wade), who only had one or two relevant scenes in the first film, get a lot more time to shine in this film to play more meaningful roles in the plot without overshadowing Sonic and the other game characters for the most part.
Signature Scene:
- Sonic's fight with Knuckles at the Wachowski residence, and in particular Knuckles catching Sonic's spin dash effortlessly. ^note
- Sonic and Tails facing Robotnik and Knuckles at the Siberian mountain, especially with Sonic and Knuckles snowboarding down it during their second clash.
- Sonic vs. Knuckles - Round 3 in the temple housing the Master Emerald, ending with Robotnik betraying Knuckles and taking it for himself.
- The finale in Green Hills, with the now fully formed Team Sonic taking on the Death Egg Robot. It all culminates in Super Sonic decimating the Humongous Mecha and releasing the Chaos Emeralds into space afterwards.
- Sonic calling Tom "Dad" at the end is noted by many to be one of the most heart-touching moments in the film as it cements a major reason why the Sonic films are well received - genuine family dynamics.
- The Reveal of Project Shadow in The Stinger.
Special Effect Failure:
- While the editing and CGI in this film is quite superb, some of the scenes with Robotnik in the Eggmobile (particularly some shots during Sonic and Tails' encounter with him and Knuckles in Siberia) are quite obviously green-screened. The part where Robotnik falls from the destructing Death Egg Robot is the same.
- During the scene where Sonic dismantles a getaway van to stop it from hitting a fear-stricken kid, it becomes apparent that the footage is sped up because the kid sways unnaturally fast.
Spiritual Successor: Just like the previous movie, this installment is seen as a Live-Action Adaptation of Sonic X. But more so because it's about Sonic being with Tails, and Knuckles getting tricked by Robotnik/Eggman to fight Sonic. But also the two have subplots about a government agent observing Sonic and his friends by being close to the ones next to Sonic and a cliffhanger about Project Shadow.
Stoic Woobie: Knuckles becomes this once you find out his family died in a senseless feud with the Owl Tribe. The epilogue also shows that he never had much of a childhood, as he's unable to comprehend the idea of just doing something for the sake of having fun. When he does finally let his vulnerable side show, he expresses confusion as to how Sonic could go through the same childhood tragedies he went through and come out happy nonetheless.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Some feel this way about Tails, who despite having part of the movie's logo styled after him, doesn't receive the same screen-time and focus Sonic and Knuckles do, and largely serves as a Mr. Exposition for most of the film, with his backstory and the like only being touched on in a couple of scenes, on top of disappearing for a good chunk of the film once he and Sonic arrive in Hawaii. Beyond that, one of the biggest complaints from fans was how little the film focuses on developing Sonic and Tails' relationship outside of a couple of scenes, making their brotherly bond feel slightly rushed and underdeveloped as a result.
Unexpected Character:
- Out of all the characters from the games to make it into the movies, it's probably safe to say that nobody expected Commander Walters to actually be the G.U.N. Commander, as the character hadn't made an appearance since Sonic Chronicles all the way back in 2008.
- Regarding The Stinger: While Shadow the Hedgehog's appearance wasn’t entirely unexpected, given how popular the character is, many were surprised that he was introduced so early on (given that he is a later addition to the cast in the games) and was introduced before more long-standing characters such as Amy Rose or Metal Sonic.
- Knuckles' father visibly appearing (albeit in a flashback shortly before he dies) was a surprise to some considering how it was widely accepted that Sega would veto characters being given parents outside of the games and without their input.
Why Would Anyone Take Him Back?: The fact that Rachel forgives Randall and gets back together with him even after it turns out his entire relationship with her was a sting operation to get close to Sonic is astonishing, even with him clearly regretting what he did and Taking the Bullet (or stun gun, in this case) for her.
The Woobie: Sonic and Tails both go through a lot, considering they're just kids. By the time they get back to Tom and Maddie, the two of them are badly injured, with Tails unconscious. And even then, they're captured by G.U.N. shortly after.

YMMV / Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022)

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