Sonic The Hedgehog managed to have quite the fixation on Olive Garden in a rather obvious and pandering way. This past weekend, Sonic the Hedgehog made his way to the big screen for the first time, following some costly setbacks. Inhabiting the human world of Earth meant that the focus was not always on the Blue Blur. This storytelling dynamic meant that his live co-stars got their time in the spotlight as well, from Tom Wachowski's (James Marsden) internal struggle of leaving his small town behind in favor of a bigger job elsewhere to Dr. Robotnik's (Jim Carrey) obsession with tracking the little hedgehog down. Of course, when character moments were not happening, they got time to spend telling viewers how great Olive Garden's Italian cuisine is.
Sonic the Hedgehog follows the titular character's friendship with Tom as they are pursued by Dr. Robotnik, who wants to harness Sonic's powers. Most of the film is set in the rural town of Green Hills, Montana, a fictional small town that shares a similar name with one of the video game's worlds, the Green Hills Zone. The exact location of Green Hills is unknown, but there is a Green Hills Ranch not far from Bozeman, Montana, where there is, indeed, one Olive Garden.
Awkward product placement is no new phenomenon; it has been going on for decades on both the big and small screens. The issue here was that it came off incredibly forced, and the mentions coming totally out of the blue only added to this sensation. Here all of the instances when Olive Garden made its way into Sonic the Hedgehog.
The film twice decided to plug the restaurant chain. The first came during Tom's phone call with his wife, Maddie (Tika Sumpter) where they were discussing their big move to San Francisco following his acceptance onto their police force. Olive Garden and their app gets brought up, and he even goes as far as to drop the "When you're here, you're family" slogan during that conversation. Later in the film after Sonic and the Wachowskis defeated Dr. Robotnik, the United States government arrives at their door with a token of appreciation. Their reward? A $50 dollar gift card to, of course, Olive Garden, which they accept with no hesitation. Thankfully, the credits and highly important post-credits scenes prevented any more mention of the restaurant from that point on.
Even the scene in which the realty website Zillow got named felt a bit hokey, driving the point home that product placement rarely feels organic. Thankfully it hasn't affected reviews of Sonic too much. Though this is only two instances of product placement, Sonic The Hedgehog did manage to drag out the name-drops longer than was necessary. The film did not need one of its concluding moments to be a high-ranking government official gushing over the "Never Ending Pasta Bowl." The film's main audience, kids, likely won't bat an eye at these scenes, but the adults will most likely pick up on it. Still, it was hard to not feel as though Olive Garden was beating the audience over the head with their drawn out advertising.