The thing about the “Sonic the Hedgehog” movies is that they continue to surprise — with how humorous, self-referential and even insightful they can be. Since the first movie defied expectations in 2020 (the creative team redesigned the character after online backlash to a first look), a third film now cruises into theaters and the series shows no signs of stopping.

Helmed at a breakneck pace by Jeff Fowler, “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” is loud, chaotic and often corny, with a visual style that can only be described as “retina-searing,” but the script by Pat Casey, Josh Miller and John Whittington is funny, punny and doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s a clever genre exercise sanded down for kids (a “Mission: Impossible” riff this time) that gleefully breaks the fourth wall to bring us all in on the jokes.

There are also references to “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” and “John Wick,” particularly with the vocal casting of Keanu Reeves as Shadow the Hedgehog, a sort of “dark Sonic” character, who here is a wounded warrior bent on vengeance. Ben Schwartz returns as the voice of Sonic, the sunny blue alien who’s “gotta go fast.”

But the real reason to give the “Sonic” films a chance is a bravura performance of pure clownery from Jim Carrey as Sonic foe Dr. Robotnik (forgive me, I did chuckle when Sonic cheekily refers to him as “Dr. Robuttstink,” it’s been a long year). And in the third installment, it’s double the Robotnik, double the fun and twice the chance for Carrey to demonstrate the brand of outsized physical humor that made him famous. Carrey co-stars as his character’s own grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, who experimented on Shadow in a secretive military lab 50 years ago.

The plot is some gobbledygook about a key and a space laser that Robotnik the elder and Shadow would like to use to blow up the Earth because they’re angry at the loss of a dear grandchild and friend, Maria (Alyla Browne). Robotnik the younger joins the mission in the interest of family bonding, while Team Sonic, which includes grumpy Knuckles (Idris Elba) and perky Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey), as well as their human caretakers, Tom and Maddie (James Marsden and Tika Sumpter), band together to try and stop the Robotniks, and learn some important lessons about teamwork and cooperation along the way.

And then, among all the chaos, dance breaks and befuddling body swaps (Krysten Ritter briefly shows up in a role that feels like it was largely cut from the film), “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” suddenly stops for a moment, for a shockingly trenchant discussion about grief and loss. That this conversation happens between two animated hedgehogs sitting on the moon only enhances the surreal nature of this surprisingly moving moment, but Reeves’ vocal performance manages to sell this meditation on learning to live with the pain of loss. Shadow and Sonic come to the realization together that isolation and bitterness is no way to honor a lost loved one’s memory.

The series shows no signs of stopping (there are not one but two post-credits teasers) and with each iteration, there are diminishing returns on the character and formula. But as long as they keep up the silly, fourth-wall breaking humor and earnest messages of unity, the Sonic franchise just might have some legs.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

Ben Smallbone’s “Homestead” takes place in a world where foreigners detonate a nuclear bomb off the coast of Los Angeles, the protagonists are saved because they own a Tesla, Bitcoin is the only valuable currency, and the truth can only be told on Right Wing radio. For some people that’s a selling point. For many others, it’s a list of red flags.

It’s easy to think of films like “Homestead” as if they live on the fringe of mainstream media, but though this particular film isn’t a major studio release, they’re hardly uncommon. Hit movies like “Black Hawk Down” and “300” have shamelessly vilified non-white antagonists, portraying them as fodder for heroic, mostly white hunks to mow down with impunity, sometimes in dramatic slow-motion. “Forrest Gump” is the story of a man who does everything he’s told to do, like joining the Army and embracing capitalism and participating in anti-communist propaganda, and he becomes a great American success story. Meanwhile, the love of his life suffers decades of indignity by throwing in with anti-war protesters and Black Panthers, and for all her trouble she dies of AIDS.

The point is, this is not an unusual starting point for a film. “Homestead” is up front about it. It’s clear from the start who this movie is for and what this movie respects. What is surprising is that this production, based on the first of a series of novels by Jeff Kirkham and Jason Ross, also has real conversations about moral conflicts and ethical crossroads. By the end, it even declares that Christian charity is more important — and also more productive — than selfish nationalism. For a minute, right before the credits roll, even people who aren’t in the film’s target demographic might be forced to admit that “Homestead” is, for what it is, one of the better films of its ilk.

And then the movie whizzes all that good will down its leg at the last possible second, contradicting its own morals in a shameless attempt to bilk the audience. 

We’ll get back to that. “Homestead” stars Neal McDonough (“Tulsa King”) and Dawn Olivieri (“Lioness”) as Ian and Jenna Ross, a fabulously wealthy couple whose gigantic estate, vast hoard of doomsday supplies and seemingly unlimited arsenal make them uniquely prepared to survive the country’s collapse. At least one major city has been nuked, the power has gone out across the nation and everyone who didn’t prepare for doomsday scenarios is looking pretty silly right now. They’re also looking directly at the Ross estate, Homestead, as their possible salvation.

As such, Ian enlists a team of ex-Navy SEALs to guard Homestead. They’re led by Jeff Eriksson (Bailey Chase, “Longmire”), who uses the opportunity to keep his own family safe. His teenage son, Abe (Tyler Lofton), is the same age as Ian’s daughter Claire (Olivia Sanabia), and nobody else is a teenager, so that romantic subplot is a foregone conclusion. Jeff also has a daughter named Georgie (Georgiana White) who has psychic visions of the future. You might think that would be important later, but leave the fortune-telling to Georgie because she knows (as far as this movie is concerned) that it won’t.

Tensions flare between Ian, who only wants to hold the fort until the American government gets its act together, and Jeff, who assumes civilization will quickly collapse like soufflé at a Gwar concert. Meanwhile, the hungry refugees, some of whom are Ian’s friends and associates, camp outside their gates, desperate to get to safety. Jenna wants to give them food and shelter, but Ian is doing the math and says their supplies won’t last: “What you give to them, you’re taking from us. It’s that simple.”

Gloom and doom fantasies like “Homestead” take place in the very contrived situations where everything you’ve always feared, and for which everyone mocked you for believing in, finally come to pass. ‘Oh no, the government is here to help,’ in the form of a sniveling bureaucrat who wants to inventory Homestead’s supplies and redistribute them to people in need — that monster. Thank God we bought the Tesla with the “Bioweapon Defense Mode,” that wasn’t paranoid at all.

Then again, in the midst of all this anti-refugee rhetoric and pro-billionaire propaganda, cracks in “Homestead’s” façade start to form. Ian’s pragmatism isn’t preventing Homestead from running out of supplies. Jeff’s paranoia seems to be costing more lives than it saves. There’s even a scene where the same woman whose life was saved by a Tesla bemoans how dangerous the vehicle was when her family got attacked by looters, and screams, “Why?! Why did we buy a Tesla?!”

By the end, “Homestead” has explored at least some nuanced perspectives on the real moral issues it raises. With a mostly game cast and efficient, professional direction by Smallbone (“Stoned Cold Country”), it’s not a badly made movie from a technical perspective. And the film’s final message, espousing the positive Christian value of charity, and both the importance and practicality of being generous to the needy, is hard to dispute.

Until, again, the movie’s actual ending. This part won’t require a “spoiler warning” because, A.) It doesn’t spoil the plot; and B.) It’s more like a warning label. This part of the film should have been clearly labeled on the package — like “Smoking causes cancer” or “This paint contains lead.”

It’s a bit of an annoyance to discover that “Homestead” is actually the pilot episode of an ongoing series, which you are expected to commit to now that you’ve bought into it with cold, hard cash. Not that there’s anything horribly wrong with that storytelling approach, but you probably went into this theater expecting a standalone movie and it’s hard not to feel a bit scammed, like you just bought a brand-new AAA game and found out most of its content is still locked behind an additional paywall. The TV series version of “Homestead” isn’t even mentioned on the film’s Wikipedia page, at least not by the time this review was written.

But more than that, “Homestead” ends with a cast member breaking character, speaking directly to the audience, and saying that with Christmas right around the corner, you should be thinking about charity. But they don’t suggest donating to the needy, like the actual film preaches. Instead, they tell you to give more money to the filmmakers. You are encouraged, with the help of an on-screen QR code that stays on-camera throughout the whole credits, to buy a stranger a ticket to “Homestead,” which they may or may not even use, thus artificially inflating the film’s box office numbers and the industry’s perception of its success. It would be one thing if they were straightforward about this: “Please give us money to make more stuff like this.” That’s not the worst thing in the world. But to couch this in terms of charity? It’s very difficult not to take issue with that.

Is this a bad business model? That depends on your values. If you value business, sure, that’s a way to make money. You show people a film designed to convince them that they should be charitable and then tell them to be charitable by giving you more money. Is it ethical? Is it a little hypocritical? Is it not just a little hypocritical, but in outright defiance of everything you just said you believed in? 

I suppose your mileage may vary. I couldn’t help but feel like I was being scammed. Just when I was finally enjoying the film, I was given every reason not to. Any movie that espouses the Christian value of generosity and then tells its audience the best way to be charitable is to make the filmmakers richer is hard to recommend in good conscience, even if it is otherwise pretty well made.

“Homestead” is now playing in theaters.

The brawny, bloodlust howl of “Gladiator II” isn’t your only opportunity for sweeping period spectacle this season, thanks to the renewed allure that OG adventure author Alexandre Dumas has exerted over the French film industry of late.

Last year’s hearty two-part “The Three Musketeers” (“D’Artagnan” and “Milady”) has now been followed up by an even grander and no less enjoyable import: a new adaptation of “The Count of Monte Cristo,” directed by “Musketeers” screenwriters and official Dumas-philes Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière. Moviegoers will want to augment their starchy, sinewy Roman vengeance diet with the herby Gallic mother sauce battering this “Monte Cristo” — after all, “Gladiator” tips its helmet to “Ben-Hur,” which was directly inspired by Dumas’ payback classic.

And like any multicourse French feast worth its indulgence, this one clocks in at three hours. But that time flies by, akin to a cozy night in with an episode binge. This zesty condensation of an 18-volume, 1300-page epic is a model of streamlining, even if the narrative’s many tantalizing threads, emotions and complications could stand to be fleshed out even more. That’s the irony, though, of rapt investment in a tale conveying the weight of decades: The nuance is earned, and whether it’s well-applied becomes the difference between a merely ripping yarn and a satisfyingly complete one.

But this absence of subtlety is barely a criticism, because what is on display here, whether on land or at sea, marked by bloom or doom, is a gorgeous, gripping pleasure. For starters, there’s the superb casting of brooding, almond-eyed Pierre Niney (“Frantz”), his man-of-few-words intensity suggesting the offspring of a swashbuckler and a troubled art-house romantic. That alchemy becomes a potent asset as his Edmond, a young ship’s captain framed for treason by his jealous friend Fernand (Bastien Bouillon) and resentful crewmate Danglars (Patrick Mille) and sent up for life by corrupt prosecutor Villefort (Laurent Lafitte), goes from whirlwind victim to masked-and-mysterious long-game plotter.

Help comes first with a wise, mentoring Italian cellmate (Pierfrancesco Favino) and a thrillingly depicted escape after 14 years (a mere blip to us) on an island prison. Appearing again in disguise as a wealthy, worldly, black-clad count (but harboring an elaborate plan of retribution), Edmond glides back into the prosperous lives of the men who betrayed him. He also discovers a son (Vassili Schneider) that Fernand, now a war hero, fathered after scooping up Edmond’s bereft fiancée Mercédès (Anaïs Demoustier) for himself. At the Count’s side are an embittered, orphaned young man (Julien de Saint Jean) and woman (Anamaria Vartolomei) with reasons of their own for becoming adoptees to their benefactor’s scheme.

Delaporte and De La Patellière understand that Dumas’ type of novelistic revenge, whether froid or chaud, is best served onscreen in the most picturesque European locations, with cinematographer Nicolas Bolduc’s cameras ready to swoop and soar as needed, and paced to gallop, never dawdle. Again, it might have been nice if the film had lingered more in certain intimate moments, especially when Niney gets his big declaration-of-intent scene, alone in a church, railing at God, ready to settle scores. That moment almost demands a fiery extended soliloquy, not the rushed version on offer.

But the filmmakers know when to elongate tension elsewhere, as in a deliciously mean-spirited dinner scene in which the Count, armed with his unwitting targets’ secret sins, toys with them, a performance that also betrays an inkling of his cruelty’s perilousness. Of course, as “Monte Cristo” plays out, we’re meant to question all that is wrought by a cold-justice mindset, and yes, those lessons become a bit of a moral buzzkill. But that’s only after so much to relish from the exploits of one of literature’s archetypal punishers, who welcomes nightmares, he explains, because “They keep my wounds fresh.” Joyeux noël, mes amis!