Taking full advantage of the timeliness of the 2022 Winter Olympics kicking off in Beijing Friday, a new TV spot for the highly anticipated video game movie adaptation, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, is touting the sequel as the “real competition” you need to see when the film drops in April.
The TV spot features the titular Sonic, played by Ben Schwartz, appropriately snowboarding down a frosty slope while being chased by the drones of Dr. Robotnik, played by Jim Carrey, in an impressive shred that would make Olympian Shaun White’s jaw drop.
But the real competition in the film will undoubtedly be between the blue blur and the red-quilled echidna, Knuckles, played by Idris Elba.
Indeed, much of the film’s hype surrounds the appearance of Knuckles, who in the video games starts out as a conflict-creating antagonist who is highly protective of the powerful Chaos Emeralds, which his clan is sworn to keep safe.
Unlike the rollout of the first Sonic movie, in which the initial design of the main character was so maligned by fans that the filmmakers completely redid the computer-generated imagery and delayed its release date, the look and feel of Knuckles in the sequel from the trailer that premiered at The Game Awards back in Dec. 2021 was immediately hailed by fans.
The brief but impactful scene where we’ve seen Knuckles in the film from the trailer impressively stopped Sonic in his tracks with a single gloved hand, despite the world’s fastest hedgehog still spinning wildly in place in the echidna’s palm.
The Japanese title of the film smartly puts Knuckles at the front and center of the marketing, with the sequel donning the subtitle “Sonic VS Knuckles.”
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 spin-dashes into theaters April 8.