I went into this with low expectations. After watching that first trailer I thought the beloved Sega mascot was going to have a lot more working against him in this film than just a disturbing new look. Yet, I went to see it anyways out of appreciation for the studio's decision to admit their mistake and redesign the character. Something I believe they deserve to be rewarded at the box-office for. I ended up walking away pleasantly surprised. Sonic gets a superhero origin story. One with a surprisingly complex and rather bizarre supporting lore. A pretty good job was done crafting a narrative fit for theatre screens out of a game series that's not exactly known for having riveting writing. The titular hedgehog establishes his place in the world, meets his archnemesis, and even sets up a few sequels without any major hitches. The only things I can see that might anger purists are Sonic now being called an alien and his new electric powers. I highly doubt the outcry will be that large though. You can tell this cute, funny adventure is aimed primarily at kids. Although I have heard it said there are some raunchy jokes. They either went completely over my head or weren't as egregious to me as they were to others. So personally I still say this is very family-friendly. It is something parents might want to consider though. Yet, none of this is to say that the movie isn't still very juvenile. In fact its childish nature is probably the biggest knock one could have against it. Portions of the humor fail to connect with anyone outside of the youngest members of the audience. I mean there's a fart gag for crying out loud. The thing that makes me more excited for a sequel to this as opposed to, say, Detective Pikachu (despite that being the better movie) are the human characters. The thought of having to put up with Justice Smith and Kathryn Newton again in order to see more of Reynolds-chu being adorable and quippy makes me ill. I could deal with Marsden and Sumpter's return however, as they were genuinely likable and never irritating. Really the only thing that has me worried about a potential follow-up is Carrey. Never really been a fan of his particular brand of comedy. He was remarkably restrained here though so I found him tolerable. However, if he's let off the leash in a sequel I could see that really turning me off. Overall, this turned out much better than history would have dictated. As much as that redesign undoubtedly helped make much of the film easier to swallow than it otherwise would have been, it really owes its success to adopting the modern superhero movie formula. Which proves to still be a winning format even in this extremely child-oriented state. It is particularly indebted to the X-Men series, which you can see during Sonic's high-speed antics where the world remains frozen around him just like Quicksilver. Sonic the Hedgehog might not blow any minds, but it is another sign that the infamous videogame movie curse is ending, if not already over.