Free Guy Review
Free Guy is a Sci Fi action comedy starring Ryan Reynolds as "Guy" an NPC in a GTA Style online video game who discovers that he is an NPC in a video game though unlike his fellow NPCs he has the agency to do what he wants. The secondary narrative focuses on Jodie Comer(Killing Eve) character a video game developer looking for evidence that the open world game "Free City" was based on stolen code from an earlier project that she and Joe Keery's (Stranger things) character worked on, with Taika Waititi as the bad Guy Antwan owner of the developer that makes "Free City". Free Guy alternates between the real and game world while also featuring appearance by some real world gamers/streamers like Ninja and Pokimane because of course it would.
I thought Free Guy was pretty decent, it’s a pretty earnest movie which is mainly tied up Ryan Reynolds "Guy" who is a very upbeat, positive character and as things progress that positivity starts to rub off on the rest of the cast. As much as this movie is about this video game it ends up being more about the relationships between these characters and how "Guy" influences them. I can't help but compare this to the other Ryan Reynolds movie that came out earlier this year The Hitman's Wife Body Guard and apart from having a much more manageable movie tittle I think this movie works a lot better, Reynolds portrays somewhat similar characters but Free Guy makes much better use of him and has a more cohesive story. While free guy is not an R movie so can't get away with as much outrageous jokes it still makes a good effort and if your familiar with video game tropes then yeah this movie does a decent job poking fun at those as well.
What surprised me the most about this movie was the scale of it, the trailer show this Free City which is heavily inspired by GTA and GTA typically has a giant scope. We don’t see much of the "Free City" save for a couple blocks and areas in the city, there is no Blaine County or San Fierro, Free City seems to be based on NYC and IRL is also set in an NYC-esque area as well. The movie usually does a decent job of differentiating between IRL and "Free City" though some of the outdoor locations especially look similar. This extends to the cast, IRL characters are represented in game by the same actors but its only realty Jodie Comer's character Millie Rusk/Molotovgirl that we see frequent both often. This is not necessarily a bad thing while scope feels smaller it does give the movie more time to focus on its characters and tell a more intimate story that will appeal to more people. Somewhat similar to Spielberg's Ready player One, while "Free City" like the Oasis is a central part of the movie the story is about people and whether that’s our IRL characters or the self-aware NPC Guy.
Facilitated by its video game setting we get action sometimes very over the top as can be afforded by such as setting. I would say this is much more of a comedy then an action movie but we do get some set pieces, plenty of scenes with cars and guns similar to what you may see in GTA Online including video game logic. Aside from the cameos mentioned, there are some people and things who pop up who you may not expect. Taika's Antwon is a pretty fun villain, you don’t see him a ton but for when you do see him he steals the show. Ryan Reynolds "Guy" is definitely more in fine with Reynolds dorky/comedic characters and for this movie it works really well.
Overall I found Free Guy to be a decent movie the scope of the film was smaller than I expected but it turns out pretty good. Video game movie don’t have the best history and if we are gonna count this as a video game movie I would say its one of the better ones. It's not high art cinema, but it's pretty endearing and I think most people will enjoy it. If you have Disney+ and have liked Ryan Reynolds comedic roles in the past then definitely check this out.