Shadow Reviews #20: Knuckles (2024)

Instructions

My Review: ⭐⭐⭐ First of all, before I get complaints, yes, I know that Knuckles is not a movie, it’s a miniseries, granted. BUT there’s only 6 episodes – each around 30 minutes I believe – which totals to 3 hours. So, when I view Knuckles, I think of it as a 3-hour movie – an action-comedy flick that’s a little longer than usual. I could see someone watching it all in one sitting – even though I took about a week to finish it. Anyway, let’s dive right in, shall we? I just wanna say: Adam Pally has a serious future as an actor. Yes, he’s had roles before Sonic, but he was kinda a nobody. As Wade Whipple, he had his big break, and he shines a lot in this miniseries. It might seem like a strange compliment, but he’s really good at the role of a loser – and that’s something I relate to a lot. I expect big things from Pally. He delivers his lines with perfect comedic timing and he’s genuinely funny. So, if he becomes like the next Sandler or Murray, you know I’m psychic. However, it was strange that a show literally called Knuckles had much less screen time and lines for the titular character and instead gave the attention mostly to Wade. Seriously, I expected a lot more Knuckles action (and there was… in the first episode, at least), but the show sacrificed a lot of the plot for Wade’s growth rather than Knuckle’s growth. This was probably out of necessity – Pally is evidently cheaper to pay for than Idris Elba. But it irked me, and it was disappointing to my expectations; it’s one of the reasons why this show does not receive 4 stars. Now, knowing that it focuses on Wade, the show does really well developing the characters in the Whipple family. Episode 3 especially highlights the dynamics in the family, and it was pretty well crafted to define the relationships between each of the characters. Wade’s mom was, at the end of the day, a tired yet responsible mother who wants what’s best for her children. And Wade’s sister was, at the end of the day, a classified jerk with not much character depth – but do jerks necessarily need a lot of character depth? And while the two random renegade agents had passable backstory, I didn’t feel like the antagonistic Buyer had much of a vendetta or motive to go after Knuckles. Shouldn’t he have targeted Sonic? There’s a few holes in the producer’s logic, I suppose. Plot-wise, the episodes are pretty interesting – although Episode 1 was dull and took too long to set up enough exposition. It picked up in Episode 3 and the last 3 episodes are pretty interesting. I liked how each episode would consciously try to revolve around a theme and structure the entire episode around it; Episode 2 in particular is a great example of this. I wasn’t very satisfied with the conclusion of the series – but at least I somewhat know why Knuckles gave the Master Emerald to Wade in the third movie (oh spoilers by the way, but I assume most of y’all watched it). As for the other criteria, Knuckles scores pretty fairly on there. The set design was visually captivating and it felt kinda like Stranger Things in a weird way (I’ve only watched half an episode of Stranger Things so I can’t be talking). The music was nice. The action was exciting. Knuckles was animated just like the movies’ standards, although that Doritos bag was terrible. So, its not as good as say Sonic 3, but its just as good as the first Sonic film… hey wait a second, the plots are kinda similar, I just realized that… What I watched it on: DVD Other critics: Rotten Tomatoes: 75% Metacritic: 61, "generally favorable"