Dawn of the Lambanoids (Mighty Cawl review)

The Might Cawl reviews Dawn of the Lambanoids.

In the year 2020, animation fans everywhere were gifted with a bizarre piece of cinema about friendship, love, war and aliens. However, I think I can safely say no one on the entire damn planet was expecting that film to be Sonic vs Aliens: Dawn of the Lambanoids.

Blue: The Colour Of Angry Hedgehogs

Sonic vs Aliens: Dawn of the Lambanoids.

Inspired by Denis Villeneuve’s hit 2015 film Pixels, the film follows a capsule sent into space full of Sonic The Hedgehog media that is received by a planet of aliens called the Frizzles. Green, cute, and humanoid, they were perfect for the world of animation. The Frizzles are obsessed with discovering an ancient civilisation known as the Lambanoids, slender, golden creatures, and when they receive this capsule full of bizarre Sonic media, they think they may have found the key.

Utilising their advanced alien technology, the Frizzles bring to life a realistically animated Sonic The Hedgehog from the media capsule, determined that he is the perfect super soldier, capable of finding the Lambanoids. Sonic plays along at first, but once his friends Tails and Knuckles are brought to life for work as well, he begins to grow dissatisfied with their life of servitude, and so begins the film’s core conflict: a revolution.

Sonic begins to bring his cast of friends to life one by one until an army of Sonic-related characters bears arms to fight against their servitude towards the Frizzles. Whilst the plot is rather standard affair, and nowhere near Villeneuve’s Pixels, there is something immensely satisfying about seeing the cast of the Sonic franchise coming together to fight for the right to be free.

Speed Blooms On The Battlefield

Of course, the Frizzles have a cast of memorable cast of characters too, mainly the Frizzle Secret Service (the FSS) agent Hugh Garante (played by Colin Firth), a bumbling if kind -hearted Frizzle that simply wants to make his planet proud, without realising the magnitude of what he is doing, enslaving these cartoon characters, crafting an interesting ideological conflict between him and Sonic, leader of the freedom fighters.

Sonic himself is characterised magnificently, still retaining his classic wit-driven charm, yet driven by a sense of fighting against injustice that only grows stronger as his army faces more and more severe losses. This then brews another interesting moral conflict: should Sonic bring his friends to life, just to bring them into war? The results are heart-crushing, and long-term fans of the sonic franchise will likely be driven to tears over the image of Sonic speeding across the battlefield with a machine gun, defending his friends with his last breath.

The film was deeply ambitious, and it showed, covering themes one would never expect in a Sonic movie. Due to its darker and more controversial nature, it never spawned any sequels, leaving this as a modern gem that I’m sure will be long remembered…

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