The Red Herring Exposed - A Clue Analysis (Part 12, The End)

Loose Thread #3, The Beatnik Preacher/Police Chief

Much like how your local police department is a small potatoes version of the FBI, the Beatnik Chief's appearance is a small potatoes version of the J. Edgar Hoover call.

What we are told: The Beatnik shows up somewhere in the second half of the movie, during Wadsworth's manic explanation of events, as a door to door evangelist. He is warning the group, specifically Mrs. Peacock, that Armageddon is at hand, that their souls are in danger and that now is the time to repent. He has a flyer that he is trying to show them. Peacock slams the door in his face.

What we find out: That the Beatnik is in fact the chief of police. He only comes back into the movie once Green shoots Wadsworth and opens the door to let the cops in. He asks "Whodunnit?" Green tells him they all did and the movie ends. Quite anticlimactic.

From a logic and storytelling point of view, the Beatnik visit serves no logical purpose. The only reason I can think of as to why the Chief of police, of all people, would do that is to theoretically tell the undercover Green that the local police were on the scene and ready to spring when notified. The whole stuff about Armageddon and Repenting could have been various kinds of code to get a message of some kind to Green.

But why on earth would that be necessary? This movie takes place in the 50's, there was no high tech surveillance going on. There would be nothing to prevent the cops from hiding in the woods around the house to stage the arrest. They should have just told Green they would be there and to act accordingly. To that extent, Green does nothing different really once the Beatnik appears. Its just a fun interlude. Furthering the logic problem is how Wadsworth reacts, or doesn't, in this case. Again, everybody in the movie is either an informant, a blackmailer or a victim, carefully invited by Wadsworth to execute his plan. The house was chosen because it was so in the middle of nowhere that Wadsworth believes he can kill a bunch of people, stack them in the basement and then leave quietly one at a time, without getting caught. The implication of an utter stranger appearing at the door to do some bible thumping should have sent off a million alarms in Wadsworth's head. But like the Hoover call, it seems to have no impact on Wadsworth or his plan.

What I think this actually is though, is a scene that was only in there to help facilitate a fake ending. In the real ending Green lets the cops in to arrest everybody but ending #2, the Peacock ending, is different. In the Peacock ending the Beatnik appears and leaves as before but after that Wadsworth solves the crime and exposes Peacock as the murderer. They sing "For She's a Jolly Good Fellow" and Peacock leaves. At this point, the Beatnik has his big scene where he strolls out of the bushes, hits his catchphrase, "Oh Mrs. Peacock, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!" he drops the flyer, pulls the gun, the spotlights flood on and Peacock gets arrested! Beatnik does a Doc Holliday gun spin into the holster and informs Watson that they got her. Very exciting stuff indeed.

Even in this fake ending it makes even less sense that he would ring the bell as Wadsworth had complete control over the house and surrounding yard, he could have let the cops hide hours or days before the guests got there so there would be no reason for the Chief to get him a message. Oh well, I think the writers just decided that the movie needed more things to happen and for some other people to show up, no harm, no foul.

A final point about the Beatnik Cop. He looks nothing like a beatnik, anti-materialistic, bongo drumming hippie that I think of when I hear Beatnik. In fact, he looks exactly like the Chief of Police. I have no idea why Peacock calls him a beatnik. He was offering a kind of hellfire preaching, warning of God's Wrath as described in the Book of Revelations. Peacock must be hard core if she considers that Beatnik.

And finally, the local cops are useless. Numerous people get killed while they were standing around, having the boss call in to ruin things and knocking on the door to make sure people are suspicious. Maybe they could argue that they couldn't see what was happening inside but they let the poor Singing Telegram girl walk right up to the door and get shot. And then did nada. Just an observation.

The Karen of Sports

We've all seen the videos of Karens' on the internet. The details vary from person to person but the basic structure is usually someone who enjoys a fairly spoiled life absolutely melting down because someone else dared to try and exist in the same world as them without showing the proper amount of respect or deference. Some of the videos are racist, sometimes sexist, frequently classist and always a display of unhinged narcissistic lunacy.

And while most of the videos online are of middle aged white women melting down like Nancy Pelosi if she doesn't have her breakfast gin, sadly we all know from life experience that the Karen behavior transcends race or nationality.

It occurred to me while watching the World Cup that soccer is essentially the Karen of sports and that's why its so insufferable.

Sure soccer just as a sport is boring and pointless but its honestly no worse than baseball most of the time, cricket or hockey before the rule change. So why does soccer strike me as kind of unseemly?

It's because the players are all exactly like your neighborhood Karen. Soccer players are some of the most skilled, in shape athletes in the world yet when anyone else dares to try and compete with them they fall down, start screaming and throwing a temper tantrum until the referee comes over and shows them the proper amount of attention. The whole game has to stop for as long as it takes to calm these man-boys down. 

And much like society with the over-privileged women shrieking in the park, soccer enables and encourages this behavior. The tantrums, the screaming, the pouting; its all fake. They know its fake, the other team knows its fake, the referees know its fake, the announcers know its fake but what happens? Do these insufferable crybabies get reprimanded? Nope! The other team gets a foul, the baby gets their bottle and the game goes on, at least until another impotent narcissist gets offended, then we get to stop to watch another one-boy play about imaginary suffering. Watch any Ronaldo game where he doesn't get his way all the time for an example.

And the refs are just as bad in their own way. They clearly get intimidated by the more famous players and teams, so they take it out on the less imposing opposition. Imaginary fouls, quick or slow cards depending on who it is and of course, their maniacal manipulation of the clock. You would think even in the bizarre world of soccer and extra time; which is only necessary because the sport caters to mentally weak crybabies; that when the time ended, the game ended. But no. Even that arbitrary end of the game can be further extended or shortened, by the discretion of the referee. Based on what criteria? Basically if the referee feels like you're trying hard enough to score you can get extra time. But only if he deems you worthy. Its absurd. I saw numerous games in the knockout stage where some poor team is trying to stave off nine minutes of stoppage time for 20 minutes because the ref apparently wasn't impressed with their effort in clearing the zone.

Its a joke. Society has rightfully decided that the best course of action in dealing with these unhinged, middle aged infants is to publicly shame them. We should do the same with soccer. Try and reinstall a little dignity back into society. If Karens and Renaldos are going to be blessed with skills and opportunities the rest of the people could only dream about, they could at least act like they earned and deserve them.

The Red Herring Exposed - A Clue Analysis (Part 11)

 Loose Thread #2 - The call from J. Edgar Hoover

A bizarre aspect of the movie that is ignored by everyone in the movie.

What we are told: Prior to the surge killing of the Cop, Singing Telegram Girl and Yvette a call from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover is answered by the off-duty cop right before he makes his own call for help.

What we find out: It was a fact a call from J. Edgar Hoover and it was intended for his undercover Agent, Mr. Green.

This entire element of the movie makes no sense, regardless of the ending. In the two false endings, Wadsworth is the undercover Agent trying to catch the blackmailer and killer. The call from Hoover comes and the Cop answers it and Wadsworth answers it as a representative of the house. All we see is after the call a slightly exasperated Wadsworth take a deep breath, then move on. If the call was for Wadsworth I suppose there could be a reason for Hoover to call with the expectation that Wadsworth would answer the phone, being the butler and all. But once the Cop answered why on Earth would Hoover just continue on and tell the Cop who he really was? No reason.

In the true ending it makes even less sense. Mr. Green is undercover and not in control of the household. Why on Earth would Hoover need to tell him something so badly that he would do it right in the middle of a sting operation where there is very little chance that Green would be able to answer the phone? There is no reason and the movie provides none. Green doesn't get the call and doesn't mention it again until he tells everyone at the end it was for him, in case his badge and gun wasn't enough to convince them he was an undercover Agent.

The call only really serves one function and that is to let the people watching the movie that something is not as it seems. Which we already knew due to the spy, blackmail, Boddy reveals. But I suppose this lets us in to the fact that there is a law enforcement element involved that we may not be hip to yet. The problem though is that while we get that info and do whatever with it, the people in the movie react to it in no way whatsoever. In the true ending, a call from Hoover should have immediately clued Wadsworth/Boddy into the fact that one of the guests was an undercover agent of some kind, or at least working with the Feds. Given that moments later Yvette is killed by White, the Cop by Scarlett and the Singing Telegram Girl by Wadsworth himself, the fact that Green is the only person in the house who hasn't killed anyone yet should have been proof positive that he was the mole. Frankly, Wadsworth should have known that already since all the guests had their informant in the house, besides Green. Wadsworth had the gun and the element of surprise and already had a house full of people being blackmailed who all just killed someone. He could have done anything with Green and pinned it on them. Or hid him in the basement. Or just fled. Anything. We don't know what the conversation was like between Wadsworth and Hoover but its impossible to imagine anything that could have been said that would have eased Wadsworth's mind. Wadsworth reacts by just doing . . . . . . . nothing. Nothing at all. 

Even if you were inclined to believe that the Hoover call was a missed edit from one of the fake endings, the same logic applies. If Wadsworth was the undercover Agent and Peacock or Scarlett was the killer, the fact that the Cop announces to everyone that Hoover was calling the house would have clued the killer into the scam immediately. What actions that would have caused we can't say but it wouldn't have just been ignored. I think it likely that it would have made Wadsworth an immediate target since all the blackmail victims had proven that they would not have worked with the Feds and the whole operation was being orchestrated by Wadsworth. This whole business with the call was for the audience only.

Up next: The final part, the Beatnik Preacher loose thread

The Red Herring Exposed - A Clue Analysis (Part 10)

Loose Thread #1 - Who is Mr. Green?

One of the stranger aspects of the movie that gets lost in the shuffle of multiple endings and slightly different scenes is the true circumstances of our hero, Mr. Green.

What we are told: Green is a State Department employee that is being blackmailed because he is secretly gay and would lose his top secret clearance, and job, if it was exposed.

What we find out: He's a gun toting, super macho, married FBI Agent working to bring down Mr. Boddy and his ring of informants.

This setup doesn't make much sense. If we accept the scenario at face value, one of Mr. Boddy's spies (Yvette, the Cook, Cop, Butler, etc.) found out that Mr. Green was gay, got enough incriminating evidence on him that it would allow for blackmail, then informed Mr. Boddy who initiated the long term blackmail. But how could that happen? To get ironclad enough evidence to blackmail someone, you would think visual proof, probably photographic but maybe a honeypot scenario, would be needed. If Green is straight then that didn't happen. Secondly, how does Green impersonate a State Department agent if he works for the FBI? Presumably the evidence against Green would have been collected before he was aware it was happening, he would have had no reason to believe he needed an undercover job at the State Department to cover his FBI roots.

One scenario that seems to be hinted at in the film is that maybe Green is a stand in. When Wadsworth is answering doors he says something to the effect of "You must be Mr. Green" after seeing Green bumbling about. We know from the end that Green is not the awkward, uncoordinated dolt he portrays himself to be for most of the movie. Is it possible that some other State Department Agent is in fact gay, has in fact been blackmailed, and is in fact a doofus and that the Mr. Green we see on the screen is simply an FBI Agent impersonating a victim to bring down Boddy? It seems highly unlikely. Mr. Boddy simply has to know what the real Mr. Green looks like. The evidence for blackmail has to be physical and incontrovertible to be effective. If you couldn't tell who it was it wouldn't work. This movie takes place in 1954 too, there was no computer trickery that could create the evidence and its doubtful that Mr. Green was willing to go to Cruising levels of undercover to create it. 

So if the proof of blackmail couldn't be faked and Mr. Green couldn't be impersonating a real victim, how did he get pulled in close enough to Mr. Boddy's group to infiltrate the dinner? Remember, in theory, Mr. Boddy is so sure of his evidence against the dinner guests he thinks he can get them to murder people, then replace them as his spies.

The Answer:

One of Mr. Boddy's spies has to have turned against him and is working for the government. Mr. Green could not have instigated the blackmail against himself on his own. That would involve faking a gay lifestyle just hoping that one of Boddy's spies notice and try and exploit it. That may never happen. But if the Cook, Cop, Butler, Yvette, etc. turned informant for the government and started bringing false info on FBI Agent Green undercover as State Department Agent Green to Boddy, then it becomes much more plausible. While photographic evidence would still not exist, other plausible, first-person information could be created by Green and the informant that would convince Boddy's and bring Green into the fold.

So which informant could it be? Who knows. Given Yvette and Mrs. Scarlett's proximity to the sex trade, its possible that Yvette could be a first person witness to some faked gay prostitute and fake Green. The movie provides no Clue that I can see however.

Up Next: The J. Edgar Hoover Call

Worst Movies Ever

This will be a running list of the worst movies I've ever seen. In no particular order.
***UPDATE*** In the spirit of positive over negative, in addition to identifying some of the worst movies ever, I will also try and offer up a better alternative.

13.  Gosford Park (2001) - There is a certain strain of British movie that is very leisurely paced yet somehow still manages to be a compelling watch that can even pull you in to a mystery or get you invested in certain characters almost against your will. Think of some of the older Poirot movies and shows or what I assume Dowton Abbey is like. This narcalepsy inducing bore is none of those things. They managed to get that particular brand of classism that is so familar to British entertainment, the stuffy condescension of most of the characters, what I assume is supposed to be razor sharp dialogue and a great depiction of the utterly pointless, superficial activities of upper class England. Sadly, it has almost nothing else. There's a murder at some point but I didn't care about anything that was happening and all I felt was a creeping sense of envy. The other characters in the movie didn't seem particularly bothered either. Some people went hunting, some servants banged some other servants, servants banged some top floor idiots, they played cards and we heard long conversations between staff about what kind of people their bosses were. Terrible as it turns out. The only thing remotely interesting was that someone decided that the best thing to have Ryan Phillippe do was pretend to be Scottish. Outstanding. If the point was to instill a sense of dread about the utter pointlessness of the human experiement, then well done. Gold stars all around. The fact that they tried to sell this as a comedic murder mystery is hilarious. The only thing less interesting than the whodunnit was finding out the answer. Horrific. TRY INSTEAD: Poirot (1989-2013), The Pearl of Death (1944), Layer Cake (2004).

12. Voyagers (2021) - Jesus this sucks. Not even the free pass of a pandemic excuses this lame Lord of the Flies rip-off. The first problem is that the world apparently has the technology to locate a new Earth and organize a colinizing mission in 2063. Sure, its 2021 now and only Amazon can get a package into space with any efficiency but in forty more years we can embark on an 86 year space mission. Sure. I couldn't get a door latch for my minivan in less than a month from China but Colin Ferrel can get a bunch of space millenials into deep space lickety split. The pace of this movie is completely wrecked. The main prick of the movie goes from member of the crew, to suspicious, to rebellious in the first seven minutes of the movie for apparently self evident reasons. Apparently 18 years of space schooling didn't quite take. I think Colin Ferrel can safely pack up that teacher of the year mug. Then we get 80 minutes of angsty, brooding rape faces. The future of humanity is supposedly at stake and I was openly rooting for all of them to get sucked into a black hole. TRY INSTEAD: High-Life.

11. Martyrs (2008) - This movie had all the makings of a nice little B grade revenge/slasher/psycho horror flick and then everything went straight to hell. It seemed like about 50 minutes into the movie they realized they ran out of script and needed something to fill the last 40 minutes. Then some French jackass came up with the idea to brutally beat a young girl for 30 minutes, skin her alive for 5, then use the last five minutes to try and justify that with a ton of psuedo-religous nut-jobbery. I don't consider myself a lightweight when it comes to violent movies but this is just offensive how little the movie cares about women, runaways, mental health issues, religion, the audience and basic human decency. You just can't do these things without any justification for it. This movie has negative justification. It lacks the lighthearted comedy you find in Hostel movies. I think the senselessness of this movie compares to a movie like Captivity but that's just a guess because I'll never watch that abomination. TRY INSTEAD: Why don't you turn off the Netflix for a while and just hug your kids for once.

10. Alyce Kills (2011) - When a movie revolves itself around a smattering of lesbian sex scenes followed by a drug fueled descent into madness, the bar for success is set so low it's practically on the ground. How can you screw up such a simple formula? How about long drawn out monologues about Enron? That's a good start. How about going 65 minutes, in a 95 minute movie, without a killing? Yep. I'm convinced the director forgot the movie was supposed to be a horror until the last day of shooting where he just killed whatever actor happened to be on set. More problems: the fact that the moral compass of the movie is a strung out dealer who trades sex for heroin; the movie ends so abruptly that the editor must've had a stroke mid-edit and nobody bothered to finish it; and the biggest sin of all, most of it was just boring. TRY INSTEAD: Excision (2012), The Loved Ones (2009); Breathless (2012).

9. Midnight in Paris (2011) - This franco-masturbatory pile of self indulgent excrement must have been underwritten by the French Chamber of Commerce. I realize that Woody Allen has turned his neurotic stalking from NYC to Europe but this is ridiculous. It's one thing to be nostalgic for the past but to be nostalgic for a past that never existed is pathetic. I refuse to believe that Owen Wilson would find the magic wormhole that allowed him to travel back in time just so he can get Hemmingway to give him notes on his crappy book. I also refuse to believe that the Rachel McAdams character exists in real life. Women this bitchy yet still desired only exist in movies so that we feel sorry for a lead character that we would otherwise wish a horrible, horrible death on. Not this time Woody. TRY INSTEAD: Un Prophete (2009); OSS 117: Lost in Rio (2009); OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (2006).

8. What Dreams May Come (1998) - Sweet Jesus what a mess. Whatever hope this movie had was quickly destroyed in a massive bout of overacting and scenery chewing by Robin Williams and Cuba Gooding Jr. right before he made that movie with Horatio Sanz on the gay cruise. The real crime here though is that not only did they make a god awful movie (pun intended), they obliterated the memory of a pretty readable book. And seriously, Max von Sydow should just pretend to be dead next time Patch Adams comes callin'. TRY INSTEAD: Drag Me To Hell (2009).

7. The Baader-Meinhof Complex (2008) - A grueling, 2 hour plus communist/terrorist lovefest that could only be loved by all those jackasses wearing Che t-shirts. One good part was the nude loving German RAF terrorists trying to explain to the PLO that sex and revolution are one in the same. Bet they got a lot of mileage out of that one. TRY INSTEAD: Munich (2005).

6. Marie Antoinette (2006) - The mystery of Sofia Coppola continues. Avoid this movie at all costs. Gay porn would be a serious upgrade in both acting and plot. TRY INSTEAD: Girl With A Pearl Earring (2003).

5. Drillbit Taylor (2008) - Owen Wilson's veins didn't just spontaneously burst from massive pride and accomplishment you know. TRY INSTEAD: Battle Royale (2000).

4. The Fourth Kind (2009) - The movie starts with Milla Jovovich warning the audience that many of the scenes in the movie are real footage from police files and that the story is essentially true. That would in fact make the movie better if that weren't a complete lie. Not only did they make a fictional movie, they opened it with a fictional PSA to try and make you think it might be true. I already bought your ridiculous premise when I bought the ticket. Stop trying to trick me a second time. And then try making a good movie. TRY INSTEAD: Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy (1968) or Predator (1987).

2 & 3. Lady in the Water/The Happening (2006/2008) - Maybe The Last Airbender will be M. Nights big comeback movie. What's that? Oh. TRY INSTEAD: The Abyss (1989)/The Signal (2007).

1. Sphere (1998) - If Sharon Stone plays a major role that doesn't include coked-out whoring or sex crazed murdering, there's a good chance that movie sucked. Exhibit A. TRY INSTEAD: Event Horizon (1997).

The Red Herring Exposed - A Clue Analysis (PART 9)

 THE EIGHTH MURDER - MR. BODDY

(Wadsworth, just prior to the reckoning)

The Situation: The supporting cast has fulfilled their roles yet the banshee wails still. After explaining to the cast the events of the entire evening, Wadsworth exposes himself (with ladies present) as the one who killed the Singing Telegram Girl and that he is in fact Mr. Boddy.

The Murder: The murder itself is straightforward. After Wadsworth nee Boddy gives his villain speech,  Mr. Green quick draws his service revolver and shoots Wadsworth directly in the heart. I think. Kind of unclear where the shot hits but Wadsworth dies almost instantly. Mr. Green reveals that he is an FBI Agent investigating the blackmail and that he is totally not gay and is going to celebrate solving the mystery by sleeping with his totally real wife. The religious beatnik makes his final appearance as he is actually the chief of the local police force, I assume. They call him chief and the cops there look like regular police and not other FBI Agents so I think Green had local backup on this one.

There are a number of problems that we'll get to in the loose threads portion of the series but one question to look at now is; "Why did Green shoot Wadsworth?"

Looking back at the evidence it seems like a pretty clear cut case of a bad shooting. At this point everybody in the house has been exposed as a murderer, been murdered or involved in a fairly elaborate blackmail scheme. It's true that Wadsworth had a gun but he has made it very clear that he is not going to kill anyone else at the party. The whole point of the night was to compromise the guests so that they can replace the cook, butler and Yvette as his informers so the blackmailing racket could continue. In addition to Wadsworth's lack of motivation, Mr. Green knows that the house is surrounded by police. Had Green simply waited and continued his ruse, they would have stacked the bodies in the cellar, left quietly one at a time and been subsequently arrested as they left. In a movie about a series of murders, the justice delivered at the end, was in fact, just another murder.

Conclusion: Wadsworth is very much a Macbethian figure. He too is the protagonist of this theater yet is ultimately the baddy. Also, Wadsworth only realizes at the very end that he has confused the message of the apparitions and that Macduff has stormed the gates and is approaching. Jonathan Lynn should've had Green cut off Wadsworth's head at the end. At least as an alternate ending.

Tortured historical metaphors aside, Wadsworth is ultimately an unimpressive mastermind. The plan itself is bizarre. Killing of proven informers just to replace them with people already rung out and on the hook? Why not keep both? Even if you accept the notion that the old informers had to be killed off to allow the Next Generation of informers to thrive, what kind of Umbrella Corp level nonsense is this? The Umbrella Corp for those not in the know is the evil corporation that unleashed the T-Virus on Raccoon City and other places in the Resident Evil oeuvre. The unanswered question in those games is how unleashing a virus that turns people into uncontrollable killing machines that spread the virus independently has any military application that couldn't be better achieved through a smart bomb, drone, robot soldier or just about anything else the military already has. For Wadsworth the question is how creating a tense pressure cooker situation that you hope will explode into chaos that will conveniently kill only the people you want is a better idea than hiring a hitman? Or killing them yourself? The explanations I thought of don't hold water. Getting the guests to kill the informers could potentially give Wadsworth more leverage over these people to continue the blackmail. But they're already being blackmailed effectively. No more leverage is needed, you run the risk of just making them desperate. Second, Wadsworth could've gotten the guests to do the killing so that he could keep his hands clean of any actual killing or hiring of hitmen. He blew that though when he stupidly killed the Telegram Girl. No matter how you look at it, the plan was odd.

Up Next:
Loose threads. Who was Mr. Green, the J. Edgar Hoover call and the beatnik interruption.

Recap:
Wadsworth: 1 murder
Peacock: 1 murder
Green: 1 murder
White: 1 murder
Mustard: 1 murder
Scarlett: 1 murder
Plum: 1 murder

Mr. Boddy: dead

The Cook: dead

Yvette: dead

Stranded Motorist: dead

Off Duty Cop: dead

Singing Telegram Girl: dead

Wadsworth: dead

My 8-Bit Quarantine: Sonic Colors

While a cursory glance at the news would suggest that the COVID pandemic and resulting quarantine have resulted in a chaotic world with no mooring in reality or decency, my own personal experience during this period has been one of profound dullness and boredom. I suspect that is a feeling shared by a vast majority of people.

One positive development though has been my son getting old enough to get into video games in a real way. With Nintendo Switch unavailable for the vast majority of this time our journey into gaming would have to suffice with an ancient Gamecube, Wii and still pretty relevant PS3. This series will review the games we have managed to complete this lost summer and we start with the first Ebay bargain I was able to locate; Sonic Colors on the Wii.

My son immediately loved Sonic as a character and looking back on it now I wish that we hadn't started with this particular game. Having played a few Sonic games lately, Colors is far and away the best one and every subsequent voyage into Sonic Teams blighted hellscape delivered slightly diminishing returns. Or significantly diminished returns. Like when the X-Files lost Mulder and Sculley and had to make do with Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish. 

The plot is the nonsensical pap the comprises all Sonic games. Dr. Robotnik is doing evil things for "reasons", Sonic and Tails have to fight him for "other reasons" and after four million destroyed robots and five million horrific puns, Sonic does a backflip, calls you a cool dude, then gives you a C- grade because you missed a red star ring that only a Ritalin fueled uber millennial could possibly have gotten to on the first run. All standard items on the Sonic greatest hits album.

So why the positive review? Generally speaking because the game is actually playable. My son is six and he was able to navigate most of the levels, figure out the puzzles and switches and, shockingly, he was able to also learn and successfully implement the various powers and abilities of the various "colors". And he was completely happy the entire time. 

That's a significant upgrade over most Sonic games. The ones I've seen have a never ending cast of supporting characters that exist for no other reason than to diversify the Sonic cosplay and furry conventions. The "colors" in this game are aliens who you are trying to save from Eggmans plan to use them as energy in a Matrixesque world but without providing them any kind of computer generated alternate reality. They have no personality to speak of though, they simply power Sonic up in a variety of ways that help him complete the levels. More importantly, they don't talk.

The other improvement is the gameplay physics. As I said, a six year old was able to manage the controls. That is a significant achievement considering the horrific physics in other Sonic games that make running, jumping, grabbing, etc. nearly impossible. The always present problem of Sonic moving too fast to navigate the world without dying constantly or running face first into walls was eliminated for the most part. And the grading system, long a device to shame you for playing such horrific games, is actually fair and provides motivation to replay the levels, do the side quests, find the red stars and unleash Super Sonic upon the world. The limited lives system was also done away with, I think. If it wasn't, its impact was minimized to the point of not noticing the way you do in some of Sonic's other rage inducing games.

All told, this was a great game to play with a kid, during a quarantine, without access to modern level consoles or PC games. That's meant to be complimentary. Combine that with a Jim Carrey/James Marsden Sonic movie that was far better than it had any right to be and its hard to imagine a better start to the quarantine. I was able to spend more quality time with my son in those first few weeks than I did with any other kid in their whole lives. Such innocent days those were. The school break was just one long spring break, all the Sonic content was competent and the days were filled with joyful laughter from a new gamer who delighted in chili dogs and running around the yard with his arms behind him like his new hero did. I think of those days fondly as the summer optimism fades into the chill of the fall, the world burns nightly and I struggle to understand why in the hell a game that requires moving a were-hog through tight turns also incorporates a double tap run function.

But that's for another day.

GRADE: B-