When I found out a Knuckles TV series was being released I felt it seemed a little random. Did we need a Knuckles TV series? No. But then again do I need to eat a full sleeve of Oreos every time I make a cup of tea? No, but I do it anyway because I enjoy it and I have no self control. Knuckles felt like that sleeve of Oreos. Did I enjoy it? Yes. Did it nourish me in a healthy way? Probably not, but who cares! I enjoyed my time with it but I didn't need it.
The entire series is a similar premise to the first Sonic movie. An alien and an out-of-their-depth small town police officer on a road trip, meeting crazy characters along the way while fighting scientists trying to harness the alien's power. Wow. It is kind of like when you used the adapter on Sega Genesis to play as Knuckles in Sonic 2, the game was the same, but it somehow felt different. The stakes are lower than the movies which I found refreshing. It allowed for more comedy moments and was able to goof around and not take itself seriously. For instance there is a full sequence where Wade ends up in a rock opera and is voiced by Michael Bolton. Why? I dunno, but I loved it.
This brings me to the main takeaway I had from this series, it should not have been called Knuckles, it should have been called Wade! Wade Whipple (Adam Pally) is the main character of this series, not Knuckles (Idris Elba). When I watched Wade in the previous two movies I found him a little annoying and much of the comedy with him didn't land. However, Adam Pally proves in this series that he has great comedic chops when he is given room to have fun, and is able to create a genuinely lovable character who I found myself routing for. We don't see a lot of slapstick comedy anymore, so it was refreshing to see some classic, well performed, farcical physical comedy that almost felt like one of the old Pink Panther movies. A particular moment I can think of involves fireworks, oil and dental floss! Other things I really enjoyed from a comedy perspective was the performance Julian Barret gave as Jack Sinclair the Bounty Hunter. Yes, his American accent was truly terrible, but I didn't care because his character felt so weird in such a beautiful way. Genuinely seemed like it would've fit in perfectly in The Mighty Boosh. Also major props to the performance given by Stockard Channing, who plays Wade's mother, she has some amazing one liners and has a fight sequence that I was glued to the TV by! My final tip of the hat goes to Cary Elwes who plays a truly insane character that eats up the scenery in such a fun way. I love Idris Elba as Knuckles and his line delivery is spot on, I just wanted more of him! But I have a feeling this is to do with how expensive it is to animate a character and have Idris Elba voice them!
There were a couple of performances I felt fell a little flat and I found myself cringing slightly whenever a joke was delivered. I am not sure if this is the actors, the writing, or the direction, but I felt the villain characters played by Kid Cudi and Ellie Taylor fell short of the comedy performances delivered by the rest of the cast. Now maybe this is also because Jim Carey's Dr Robotnik left giant shoes to fill, so they were fighting a losing battle from the start. I also felt the same with Edi Patterson, who played Wade's sister Wanda Whipple. The moments that were supposed to be funny, to me, felt a little forced. However I do recognise that maybe some of these performances might be funnier to a younger audience, I am not sure because I am old as hell now!
Now lets talk about the soundtrack! Because I loved it! Wade shares my obsession with 80s and 90s music and it is used so well throughout the series. They did however commit one musical crime. They used 'I Need a Hero' and I am so tired of that song being used in EVERYTHING. It feels lazy to put that song in a film or TV series now, because it is so over done. Apart from that though, I loved the soundtrack and felt it really uplifted the action.
Now lets talk about Knuckles as a character, since the show is called 'Knuckles'. Without giving any spoilers the character's main struggle is that he is finding it hard to call Earth his home and his journey very much focuses on him learning to relax and trust others, which is performed extremely well and for the most part comes across. Knuckles's journey very much feels like the subplot but his relationship with Wade is done really well and the unlikely couple have some hilarious and heartfelt interactions that really made me smile. It could be argued that the series is inconsequential, however I do think it made me warm up to Knuckles a little more and I believe I will be more excited to see him in the future movies because of this show.
The length of the episodes were around 30 minutes which felt perfect and there are 6 episodes in total. I felt it was a good length and was long enough to tell the story without overstaying its welcome. However a few more Knuckles and Wade buddy cop moments would've also have been nice. I also really enjoyed the opening credits and found myself not skipping them. There were many video game references in there, as you can imagine, and I found myself shouting at the screen with excitement in a couple of moments that related back to the games in a creative way. I am not going to go through them in this article because of spoilers but maybe I will list them in a separate article at some point.
All in all I thought that the show was cute and fun and had some stand out comedy performances. However it is let down by some of the overly forced jokes and the fact that Knuckles seemed to play second fiddle most of the time. The soundtrack rocks and genuinely I had fun with the slapstick humour and believe it would be an ideal show for parents to watch with their kids. My score for this show would be a 7 out of 10.
I am now excited about the next film and feel like the Sonic Universe is here to stay and you know what? I'm kind of excited by that! How do you guys feel about the Sonic content? Are you as excited as I am to see Keanu Reeves play Shadow!? Comment below!
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