Knuckles

The Sonic the Hedgehog movies is a hot movies, and with the third one on its way, Paramount and Sega bring us Knuckles, a six episode miniseries released on Paramount+

After the events of the second movie, Knuckles (voiced by Idris Elba) is having a hard time adjusting to living a normal life, being raised to be a warrior. After he is grounded by Maddie for his warrior shenanigans, the ghost of Chief Pachacamac (voiced by Christopher Lloyd), he is given the task of training Wade Whipple in the way of the echidna warrior, as he plans to compete in a bowling championship in Reno, Nevada. However, the two are now in a misadventure, as two rogue G. U. N. Agents (played by Alice Tregonning and Scott Mescudi, the latter known for singing The Stars in the Sky in the second movie's sountrack as Kid Cudi), are hunting Knuckles for a man known only as The Buyer (played by Rory McCann), a former associate of Dr. Robotnik's who is seeking Knuckles for his power.

Watching this, I can say this show is okay, but not perfect. The miniseries seems to be rehashing the buddy road trip ideas seen in the first Sonic movie, only with Knuckles and Wade in place of Sonic and Tom. Also, despite being named Knuckles, the story sadly has Wade and his family taking center stage, as the story is based around Wade's passion for bowling, and his family, which includes Wanda, his sister from the FBI (played by Edi Patterson), mother Wendy (played by Stockard Channing), and father Pete (played by Cary Elwes). However, they do manage to bring in Tika Sumpter back to reprise her role as Maddie Wachowski, and Ben Swartz and Colleen O'Shaughnessy reprise their roles as the voices of Sonic and Tails (even though they appear as guests in the first episode).

Throughout the six episodes, they have managed to put in easter eggs to the Sonic games like they did in the movies, and the story is kind of interesting, but it suffers from having too much drama and not much action, but I guess it works somewhat, as the show does focus on Wade, a character who was a supporting role in the movies, and gives him his time to shine in what is otherwise an okay underdog story where he is given advice from a red echidna. Mostly for Sonic fans and those who want more Sonic and have trouble waiting for the third movie's release.

We were actually looking forward to this series. Me, my husband, and the kids really enjoyed both recent Sonic movies. We saw both in the theater. So when we saw this was coming out, we were looking forward to the release.

Okay, let's be fair, the good stuff first. It's clean and appropriate for children, other than no one dying violence. I always appreciate family entertainment because I like it too. CGI is fabulous. The episodes look visually well made. Love the soundtrack.

Now the bad. It's boring. We made it through the first 3 episodes before we unanimously decided to stop watching. The story just wasn't interesting. The acting is not real good either, that was bothering me. We are not planning to finish watching the series.

This show isnt really a knuckles show. Wade and his storyline takes center stage, with knuckles being a side character at best. Some episodes literally being only 5 minutes screentime and a few lines of dialogue. In honestly I expect there to be a youtube video titled "Knuckles but only when knuckles is there" and with a length of about 30 minutes at most. The man Villain is laughable as there is no real reason for him to be a villain and after knuckles and have only one scene with Knuckles only to end in 5 minutes. The show is more the "Wade show" and happens to be in the sonic movie universe.

Plot is anything to write home about and nor do I expect it to be, but in Sonic 2 they seperated the human characters from sonic and friends, making the film all the better, the show focuses too much on the humans and fails to explore the named character, thus pushing him aside.

This show is stuck in this awkward spot where it looks great, but the show's reluctance to have any mature moments drag it down. Adults aren't allowed to be adults, and every line has me waiting to groan at a punchline. The villains are used for gags that ruin any sense of intimidation they could otherwise have had. The show has its great moments - the expressiveness of the characters is very fun to watch - but it's overshadowed by a reluctance to take itself seriously or respect its characters. The show focuses far more on Wade than the titular character, action scenes are inconsistent with how they use their powers and technology. While there are high points, overall it's generally disappointing.

... or something to that effect. The show focuses squarely on Adam Pally's Wade character and occasionally features a story line of Knuckles being hunted.

The show can't seem to decide what it is. It has a lot of nostalgic references and throw backs that will appeal to the adult crowd and go over the heads of any kids trying to get into it. It also relies heavily on essentially extended cameos from Cary Elwes, Paul Scheer, Christopher Lloyd, Kid Cudi, etc. And can't seem to get the full effect of what they could've gotten if they'd just written a solid story arc around one antagonist.

The biggest takeaway here is that Knuckles is WAY under utilized (especially for a show called Knuckles) and the relationship between Knuckles and Wade is under developed and wasted considering how many episodes are in the series. Although Pally once again plays his typical man-child character who can't seem to grow up, the back and forth bantering between him and a fish-out-of-water serious Knuckles is funny and adorable. But sadly the show chooses to focus on Wade almost exclusively. It's a big miss because the best scenes are the ones with Knuckles interacting with the people around him, not just Wade. His scenes with Wendy (played by Stockard Channing) are great and funny, as are basically any scene of Knuckles having to simply be Knuckles in this new world around him.