Reviews Series / Knuckles

Series Leave expectations at the door, and you'll have a good time

As someone only recently getting into the Sonic movieverse, this series has one big problem:

it should've been called "Wade & Knuckles".

That wouldn't have been as marketable, but this really isn't an epic series about the titular echidna. It's an action-comedy that world-builds and develops the human side of the "Sonic Cinematic Universe" that Knuckles happens to also be in. And despite initial knee-jerk reactions, Knuckles isn't exactly wasted here. Idris Elba's performance is still on-point, he's funny, gets some great action scenes, is as well-animated as the films, and relates to the human characters' struggles surprisingly well.

Wade is the real star of the show though, and as I watched through the episodes, I realized I was more okay with that than I thought. If a series can take a minor comic-relief character from the first film and turn him into someone I genuinely care about (I'd say I like Wade more than Tom now), that's an absolute plus. His heart-to-hearts with Knuckles are genuinely, well, heartfelt, too.

Speaking of heart-to-hearts, Wade's mother is also a highlight. His sister's kind of an annoying Big Sister Bully joke but has a few funny moments. And his dad, despite some silliness, is a genuine asshole you really want to see knocked down several pegs. (Pun kind of intended) Again, I'm surprised at how much I now care about this family of human side characters in a Sonic adaptation.

But they're not the only stand-out humans. Rouge G.U.N agents Mason and Willoughby are minor villains done right: entertaining, threatening and both hateable and oddly humanized. The Buyer isn't in the show as much as promos suggested, more a Post-Final Boss than anything, but he does his job.

Besides them though... Jack Sinclair the bounty hunter gets teased in episode 1 before becoming the Arc Villain of the 4th, and he somehow chews the scenery a little too much to be believable or even that funny. (Probably because unlike the above characters, he's neither an actual supervillain nor in league with one) And Episode 3 bafflingly pits Knuckles and Wade's family against 3 unnamed bounty hunters we've never seen before and don't see again. Why not use Mason and Willoughby, the perfectly good villains you already had, again? (Maybe they were worried about Villain Decay?)

My overall view is the first episode is the best, the second, fifth and sixth are good, and the third and fourth are an unfortunate dip. The rock opera was a fun idea but Jack's absurdity ultimately ruined the episode for me. The later episodes may have lingered a bit too much on the bowling tournament, but the climax of Wade's arc was handled well.

So after some initial backlash, I came to see this show for what it is, and it's not bad. I'd be interested in future series with the premise of "a Sonic character helps one of the main humans with their problems".

Series This series is super silly - in a fun way

Someone really said "Let's make a series based on The Big Lebowski and DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story with a Sonic character and just roll with it." And it is worth it. This series is super silly - even compared to the two previous Sonic movies, but it's incredibly entertaining. This series doesn't take itself serious for a second. You could criticize that this series really is about Adam Pally's Wade Whipple with Knuckles only being a side character, but that isn't really that bothering as Knuckles is still incredibly funny. Also, the animation of the characters actually is as good as in the movies. So if you want to binge-watch and just have fun, this is the right series for it.