The impending release of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was a good excuse to revisit Sonic the Hedgehog, the original film, with the kids. (The kids are, after all, the only reason I'm watching movies like this in the first place.) And, while Sonic is not and probably never will be a character I seek out for my own entertainment, I have to give credit to filmmakers for taking a video-game concept and making a solid, fun and funny movie that adults can enjoy with their children.

Kudos, too, for taking fan feedback on the original character design and retooling Sonic to look a little less ... demonic.

The movie introduces us to Sonic (voiced by Ben Schwartz), an anthropomorphic hedgehog who is torn from his idyllic world and finds himself alone and afraid on Earth -- specifically, in the small town of Green Hills, Montana. He lives alone in a cave for 10 years before meeting local sheriff Tom Wachowski (James Marsden), who tries to help the superfast alien find his way home; meanwhile, government forces detect the strange alien signature and deploy a mad scientist, Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey), and his much-maligned assistant Agent Stone (Lee Majdoub) to track down and contain the power source.

Hijinks ensue as Sonic, with Tom's reluctant assistance, travels to San Francisco to find Sonic's lost portal rings.

Marsden does a good job acting with and reacting to his computer-generated costar. Carrey really sells it, though, bringing the cartoon villain to life with a sense of over-the-top fun.

The best bit? The running battle on the highway between Sonic, Tom and Robotnik's endlessly evolving battle machine. Once in San Francisco, Tom's veterinarian wife Maddie (Tika Sumpter) gets involved in helping Sonic, while her sister Rachel (Natasha Rothwell) becomes an unwilling witness to their shenanigans.

There are a few more boss fights and perhaps too many conversations about the value of friendship and finding one's sense of self-worth, but at the end of the day, Sonic the Hedgehog is at worst inoffensive and at best entertaining. My kids enjoyed it enough to want to watch it more than once -- which certainly isn't true of most of the humans-interact-with-a-CGI-protagonist movies they've seen lately -- and the movie provided enough fun that my wife and I weren't bored. It is better than a lot of movies aimed at the same demographic, so as an adult roped into watching it, I'll take that as a win.