 two iconic video game characters star in some incredibly polished films. It's Detective Pikachu versus Sonic the Hedgehog on Movie Feuds. Game on. James Marston, obviously best known for his role as the voice of digs in Cats and Dogs, The Revenge of Kitty Galore plays Tom Wachowski in the Sonic the Hedgehog movie. He's a small town sheriff looking to do something more meaningful in law enforcement. Saving the blue blur voiced by comedian Ben Schwartz might just be the ticket he's looking for. Schwartz does a great job capturing the cool and often silly antics Sonic partakes in. The antagonist of the picture, Dr. Robotnik, aka Eggman, is played by Jim Carrey. Full blown Carrey at that. Voice changes, crazy facial expressions, and cartoonish mannerisms are all on display. I'm a huge fan of the actor, so this was a huge return to form for me, one I never imagined I'd see in a Sonic the Hedgehog movie, but I'm grateful. There are a few other supporting actors such as Tom's wife Maddie and Dr. Ibel Robotnik's right-hand man Agent Stone, but with two larger-than-life characters already in the picture, less is more. Detective Pikachu keeps the focus on just a few individuals as well, but the number of Pokemon that show up in this thing is quite impressive. I believe there's 54 different types because I looked it up on one site and that's what I'm gonna go with. Pikachu and Psyduck take center stage with Ryan Reynolds voicing the little creature, which will honestly never get less weird for me. I don't know why this is a thing that had to happen. Truth be told, I would much prefer Reynolds play a human character alongside Pikachu for the film. Pikachu could have just said his name in a bunch of cute variations like he did in the cartoon, but that's not what we have, so let's just talk about what there is. Instead, our lead is Tim Goodman, played by Justice Smith. Just like Tom and Sonic, he's a likable enough lead that ultimately doesn't bring much to the table. Really nothing much more than a human for our CG protagonist to bounce lines off of. Joining Tim and Pikachu is Lucy Stevens, played by Catherine Newton. She often acts like she's in an entirely different picture, one that's a lot more silly and over-the-top. Then there's Ken Watanabe, who adds a bit of class to the film as Lieutenant Hyde Yoshida. The humans are all fine and well, but the real stars are the Pokemon. The big standouts for me being Mr. Mime, Cubone, Charizard, and of course my boy Mewtwo. Wild Detective Pikachu easily wins in terms of showing off video game characters. Sonic isn't without its cameos. And not only cameos, but lots of tips and hats to the game, whether it's Sonic just balancing on the ledge to an occasional friend that shows up. And I'm gonna refrain from spoiling those since this film is still very fresh in theaters. There's not a lot, but it's nice when you get something. I'm gonna go ahead and start with the plot of Sonic the Hedgehog since I honestly don't really know what Detective Pikachu was supposed to be when it all was said and done. We are first introduced to the blue devil on his home planet as a baby hedgehog. He's living his best life, running fast and being raised by a giant owl for some reason who teaches him that he needs to either get busy running or get busy dying. Baby Sonic learns this lesson the hard way that with great power comes great confrontation by people that want to take that power. That's not quite the expression, but whatever. A bag of magical rings and one presumably dead owl later, Sonic finds himself on earth in the small quaint little town of Green Hill Zone. Well just Green Hill, I guess it's not a zone. Years go by as Sonic spies on the locals and constantly plays with himself. I hear how that sounds. Eventually the government catches wind of our hero when Sonic causes a massive power surge in a fit of sadness. If having sudden crying fits led to impressive electrical surges in real life, I would have caused total planetary blackout at this point. Sonic and Tom eventually meet up to avoid the government's worst hire, Dr. Robotnik, and to try and retrieve the satchel of rings that went missing. It's a very simple and enjoyable premise that leads to plenty of action, comedy, a little drama, and of course, shilling for Olive Garden. Why? Why out of all the things Olive Garden and not Sonic? There's a Sonic fast food chain. Go go with that. It would have been so easy to have our our blue hero roll through the drive-thru, get himself a slushie, look at the camera and wink, and then we all move on. We all move on with our day. But why Olive Garden? That makes more sense in like a Fast and Furious franchise. Because of the family thing, you know? Detective Pikachu starts out simple enough too, but things quickly go off the tails as the film progresses. That was a pun based on the Sonic character. When Harry Goodman goes mysteriously missing, it's up to his son Tim and a unique Pikachu that only he can understand to solve the case. They'll follow the breadcrumbs as the story unfolds, which will lead them to some pretty interesting situations, such as an illegal Pokemon cage match or interrogating a Mr. Mine. By the time the film gets into its third act, we see our lovable friend Pikachu in a fight to the death on the rooftops with Mewtwo, whose mind controlled by an incredibly rich, very misguided businessman. Oh yes, Tim's dad is revealed to be trapped inside Pikachu's body, and directly below the rooftop battle, people are being turned into Pokemon in the streets of Rhyme City via gas clouds emitted from giant polka floats. It's complete and utter nonsense, with a villain motivation so stupid, not even Team Rocket would go for it. I mean, they might, but they're not in this, so who cares? Sonic the Hedgehog definitely had an impressive comeback story early on. The initial trailers and marketing introduced a very different-looking blue blur to the audience, one that had more teeth than a British character, but none of the charm. His body looked like that of an Italian bodybuilder, and the music was more out of place than me at a sensitivity seminar. Coolio? More like Cooley No. Thankfully, the internet did what the internet does best. Complaint. The movie was postponed, the animators were most likely overworked and underpaid, and we'll all chalk it up to a win. And within a year, we'll pretend like this whole thing never even happened. Unless in the sequel they make Knuckles look like my uncle Brian. I'm sorry, that doesn't mean anything to you. My uncle's a crack addict. The final product was thankfully a Thing of Beauty. No longer a werehog, Sonic now looks true to form. Rocking his trademark white gloves and a pair of slick new girl shoes a little kid just happened to have lying around her house. It's weird. Part of me wishes this whole film was computer generated, but then we wouldn't get that great Jim Carrey performance. An animation can't replace what Carrey does. We don't have the technology. We most likely never will. While we didn't get Super Sonic, I quite enjoyed the quick silver-esque slow-motion sequences and multiple nods to the video games. Beating Robotnik by smashing into a ship multiple times, that's true to form to the video game. My only regret, not seeing Sonic release a bunch of animals held captive inside of a metal container by jumping on a giant yellow switch. We can't have it all. Not yet at least. The Blue Devils in the details as they say and Detective Pikachu's full of them. This is a stunning film full of many incredible locales, ranging from the neon-infused city of Rime to the lush forests of... Rime. I don't know where the forests are. But it was still a sight to behold, featuring my boy Bulbasaur and a series of other fan favorites. The city itself is bustling with Pokémon of all types and sizes, and they all look amazing. Quasar realistic look of the Pokémon was something I always knew I needed, and the VFX department absolutely knocked it out of the stadium. I said stadium instead of park because of Pokémon. The visuals are easily the best aspect of Detective Pikachu, and I'm a bit bummed out that they were wasted on a very mediocre script. Hopefully it's not the last time we see this presentation. As for the music, Sonic gets a wrecked Ralph-style animated nostalgia trip through the past games, set to a fun song by Wiz Khalifa and friends. The awesome Green Hill Zone song? That makes a brief appearance as well. Queens Don't Stop Me Now appropriately fits, and the original score works well enough. While Sonic goes for the fun upbeat music, Detective Pikachu slows things down. Avicii, Halsey, and Rita Ora songs can be heard along with the original compositions from Henry Jackman. When the action ramps up, he provides some great tracks that sound similar to something you would hear in the TV series or game. Alright, controllers down. Let's see who won. As much as I absolutely adored the look of Detective Pikachu, I couldn't get on board with much else. The easy pick for me is Sonic, but I pulled my YouTube community, and this is how things shook out. Detective Pikachu stumbled upon 33% of the votes, but he can't keep a good hedgehog down with Sonic winning at 67%. Sorry Pikachu, but you've got to go fast if you want to keep up with Sonic. Thanks for watching and possibly subbing, and remember, this is more than just reviews, this is movie feuds. And now that our hedgehog has had some success at the box office, I'm thinking Shadow the Hedgehog, R-rated gritty spin-off, brandishing double guns, motorcycle, Parham with Keanu Reeves, 150 mil opening weekend easy. Sega, give me a call. I have ideas.