Early this month I had the opportunity to go to an exclusive fan event screening for one of my most anticipated films this year: Sonic The Hedgehog 2. 

While I'm not the biggest Sonic fan, I enjoyed the first film albeit I wish it could've utilized more elements from the games. In comparison to Detective Pikachu, which released before the first film, the first Sonic movie basically followed the tropes of very "CG character comes to OUR world" movie and only having some elements of Sonic here and there that raised it above similar films like it. Not to mention that the film, for being based on such a colorful and vibrant franchise, was mostly blandly colored. 

The sequel on the other hand more than met my expectations from what was marketed in the trailers. 

For starters, the film rectifies the biggest problem with the original: the lack of "Sonic" elements. Adventures, action, and iconic game imagery were mostly thrown away in the first film in order to make a more digestable buddy cop road trip film that just so happened to have some Sonic elements here and there. This time around the movie heavily leans into video games with references, locations and doing its own take on certain elements in those classic games. It puts everything that has to do with the Sonic franchise at the forefront to deliver one of the most faithful adaptations I've seen so far for a video game film. 

Another element that was greatly improved is the cinematography. Shot by Brandon Trost, every shot in the films looks so vibrant and bold. Something that the first film was severely lacking for a franchise that is as colorful as Sonic. 

Both movies couldn't look anymore different and I also feel that it's the fact that they were able to lean into more elements from the games that gave the VFX artists and the cinematographer the chance to truly lean into the vibrancy of the games. 

All in all, the movie is one of the best video game adaptations we've gotten so far and is a blast from start to finish. It delivers on everything the trailers are selling you on and a bit more. Paramount really has their next big franchise on their hands with this universe.