Sonic The Hedgehog 2 Review: 6 Ups & 4 Downs

3. The TERRIBLE Wedding Subplot

There's one standout culprit for the film's egregious runtime, and that's the head-smackingly overlong wedding subplot.

Early in the film, Tom (James Marsden) and his wife Maddie (Tika Sumpter) are whisked away to Hawaii for the wedding of Maddie's sister Rachel (Natasha Rothwell).

We cut briefly back to Tom and Maddie several times throughout the film, culminating in an absurdly unnecessary mid-film sequence where the wedding descends into sheer chaos.

For the better part of 15 minutes (seriously), we're left to watch this subplot play out all while Sonic (Ben Schwartz), Tails (Colleen O'Shaughnessey), and Knuckles (Idris Elba) are mostly kept off-screen.

It's a real head-scratcher of a decision, and this is the material that most blatantly should've been trimmed down. This is cutting room floor fodder if it ever existed, and ditching most of it would've helped the film maintain a greater sense of momentum.

That's no disrespect to any of the cast involved, who all do fine with what they have, but this isn't why anyone came to see a Sonic movie, despite what studio executives might apparently think.