Early in the first episode of Knuckles, a viewer may get the sense that this is the closest Paramount+ will come to a Star Trek Worf miniseries. A large, red cartoon Echidna, Sonic the Hedgehog’s pal Knuckles is a variation on every sci-fi universe’s favorite trope — the super-tough warrior with a strict code of honor, inability to understand sarcasm and metaphor, and no social graces.
As the show opens, he has created his own Sonic game-style obstacle course out of wood to test himself further; visitors to the Wachowski home where he resides are the unfortunate “beneficiaries” of his channeled aggression. Idris Elba is by most metrics the best actor to be associated with the Sonic movies, and his deadpanning ranks alongside the greats — not just Michael Dorn’s Worf, but Dave Bautista’s Drax as well, and Elba’s closer MCU costar Chris Hemsworth.
Put a Ring on It
You may be wondering how a streaming series has the budget to star a fully CG character, and unfortunately, the unsurprising answer is that it doesn’t. Knuckles, by fiscal necessity, becomes a secondary player in his own show, as the ancestral echidna ghost Pachacamac (Christopher Lloyd) tasks him with mentoring Wade Whipple (Adam Pally), the annoying comic-relief deputy from the movies. Pairing the best character from the cinematic franchise with the worst is certainly a choice; it’s a budget saver, but Tika Sumpter’s Maddie, for one, would have been a less irritating foil.
It doesn’t help matters that Wade’s “warrior” goal is almost entirely lifted from the Farrelly brothers’ movie Kingpin — he intends to compete in a world bowling tournament in Reno, Nevada, to get revenge on a former teammate who betrayed him, and find the father who abandoned him years ago. Meanwhile, rogue government agents (Ellie Taylor and Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi) and a former Dr. Robotnik henchman (Game of Thrones’ Rory McCann) are on the hunt for Knuckles in order to gain the power of his energized quills.
Try to Make Me Go to Reno…
So, yeah, it’s yet another road trip story pairing a hapless human with a weird CG character. It’s a formula that’s worked at least twice for James Marsden, whose Tom Wachowski character is conveniently out of town for this story. It doesn’t work for Pally. It’s hard to place sole blame on the actor-comic, who has been fine in many other TV shows and movies, from Star Trek Lower Decks to Iron Man 3. Here, however, his character rings false even in the heightened reality of the live-action Sonics.
Constantly mugging and screaming in that over-the-top, “kid TV show” style, Pally’s Wade comes across as what he is — a grown man trying to channel a five year-old. Adam Sandler made big bucks doing that sort of thing convincingly (if annoyingly in its own way), but Pally never quite feels like he believes it. It’s like he knows he’s being stupid, rather than truthful to the character. In a franchise about cartoon alien furries fighting Jim Carrey, somehow the least believable aspect is that Wade would ever remotely come even close to a sheriff’s deputy job.
Minus Pally, the cast features some strong supporting performances. Stockard Channing shows up as Wade’s Jewish mother, who insists on calling the echidna “Nuchels” and teams up with him in a fight scene to defend Shabbos candles from home invaders while “Hava Nagila” plays on the soundtrack. She also offers vague hints of flirtation, which is the only nod to some of the more unsavory corners of Sonic fandom.
As You Wish
Meanwhile, as Wade’s surprisingly English father, Cary Elwes offers a master class in being appropriately over the top while still respecting the character’s reality. The Mighty Boosh’s Julian Barratt, as Wade’s former friend and current bounty hunter, offers deadpan preposterous similar to Elba’s, but with the added challenge of having to keep a straight face in front of the rest of the cast.
The show’s opening credits feature animated Knuckles drawings set to Scandal’s “The Warrior,” which matches Knuckles’ self-perception and goal for Wade. Overall, though, the soundtrack is a missed opportunity. Sonic the Hedgehog is a ’90s game, and it’s literally a plot point that Wade used to make mix CDs for every year of the ’90s. Yet the only recognizable ’90s jam is the insufferable, overused “All the Small Things” — elsewhere, the series relies on the same tired ’70s and ’80s needle drops as every movie. “Jungle Boogie” over a bowling montage; “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting” for, well, a fight scene taking place on a Saturday, etc. Sonic’s first fanbase was ’90s kids, and the opportunity to push their nostalgia buttons further seems to have been neglected out of laziness.
Not everything involving Wade is insufferable — a dream sequence involving a Michel Gondry-style “sweded” game level that Knuckles once defeated is both cleverly rigged and a smart way to save money in depicting what would otherwise be an all-CG flashback. But little about him is inspirational in the way that it needs to be to get the audience on his side. As destructive as Knuckles is, he seems like he’d be fun to hang with. Wade wouldn’t break your stuff, but he’d destroy your patience.
Walls of Heartache?
More adventures with Knuckles could be fun — you don’t have to be a diehard Sonic-head to look forward to his interactions with Keanu Reeves’ Shadow next movie. (Some of us simply look forward to Wade getting relegated back to cameo status). Still, if your kids like that sort of over-the-top, not-quite-real, man-child performance that Pally’s doing, it’s for them.
If Channing and Elwes want to team up on a “Wade’s Parents” spinoff minus Wade, I wouldn’t say no to that either. Knuckles, the show, as is, qualifies for a “maybe.”
Grade: 2.5/5
Knuckles premieres April 26th on Paramount+
