Another trip to the movie theaters this weekend to catch the new action-comedy, Free Guy. Checkout out our review below with a few spoilers.
Free Guy stars Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool), Jodie Comer (Killing Eve), Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnorak) and Joe Keery (Stranger Things), Utkarash Ambudkar (Blindspotting), and Lil Rel Howery (Get Out) in a story about a background character in a video game (Guy) who begins to evolve beyond his written character.
A Little Video Gamer Primer
It isn’t at all necessary to be a video game fan or even have much familiarity with them to enjoy Free Guy, but there are a few things to know for the newbies out there.
Non-Player-Character (NPC) - In most video games, you or your 13-year-old son takes on the role of the main character. In the popular multiplayer games of today, thousands upon thousands of people log in to the game, taking on roles as main characters who then take on missions/quests, interact or go solo, and generally wind their way through the storylines programmed into the game. However, most of these stories require other characters for sometimes important (like the villain or big boss) or simple ancillary background characters who make the game seem more real (like the teller at the bank that gets robbed during the game). These background characters are referred to as NPCs. They may sometimes be helpful in a mission, but mainly they are just filler.
Many popular games today fall into the ‘massive multiplayer online game’’ category (MMOG). These are those games where thousands of people are logged in and playing all at the same time, and the game is going on in real-time, never stopping.
Free Guy takes place inside one of the MMOG games where players generally play bad guys, robbing banks, stealing cars, and other illegal and often violent activities. There are plenty of MMOG games like this around today.
What’s it About?
The story follows Guy (Ryan Reynolds), an NPC who works as a teller at a bank. Initially, he goes about his daily routine of having the bank robbed multiple times a day, and otherwise watching all sorts of mayhem happening around him on the streets of Free City (also the name of the video game) every day by the ‘sunglasses people’ - who are the real players in this game. He doesn’t worry about any of this, simply being the NPC he is, and not really doing anything beyond the same routine every day.
However, one day he runs into a player who for whatever reason makes him break out of his programming. That character is Molotov Girl (Jodie Comer), who turns out to be the character played by a game designer who is suing the company that owns Free City for stealing her code. He is so taken by her that he decides to stop a robbery at the bank, stealing the sunglasses from the robber, which suddenly gives him the ability to see the game the way players see it.
What follows is a highly entertaining action-comedy with Guy learning to become his own person in the game, while Comer’s character and her former game design partner Keys (Joe Keery) search the game for proof that their code was stolen and still lives in the game. Guy himself turns out to be one major clue, as they had built an artificial intelligence algorithm into their game, which was embedded into Free City.
The movie is over the top, allowing Reynolds to play to his acting strengths for improv and witty banter. (Watch Deadpool.) Comer and Keery are also enjoyable as people in the real world and Waititi as the villain and owner of the gaming company that built Free City is enjoyable if predictably bad.
What does it remind me of?
Free Guy pays homage to a lot of movies either overtly or more suggestively. I saw a bit of Wreck-it Ralph, The Matrix, The Lego Movie, The Truman Show, and various others. There are also some very fun Marvel callouts that I won’t spoil for you.
Watch it or Not?
Watch it! Definitely watch it if you like video games, but even if you aren’t an avid gamer, chances are you will enjoy this clever. Funny, and even a little heartwarming movie. It’s a winner.
