He's live action in those films. Only Sonic is CG.

But I mean regardless, in his defense, they were good kids movies and he was great in them (in the genre of kids movie villain). But more importantly in his defense: he probably took a break, and got recharged. He's been pretty open about his mental health struggles, so he probably thought he would never come back unless it was amazing, took a break, got recharged, starting getting itchy to work/bored, and then he either liked the script, saw it as particularly low stress/fun, or just wanted some money.