Free Guy, the newest film from director Shawn Levy, is the first of its kind: a movie about video games that runs on video game logic, unlike the others that blend games into reality. Starring Ryan Reynolds as a NPC (for the non-gamers here, that’s “non-player character”) in an open-world video game akin to Grand Theft Auto, this sci-fi action comedy runs on references, and feels like a combination of Ready Player One, The Lego Movie, They Live, and The Truman Show all at once. It’s a digitally aware love story, where Guy meets Girl, Guy falls for Girl, and finally, Guy discovers that reality is a lie and God is a troll. Yet despite this implied disparity, the film holds itself together throughout it all. It’s a very entertaining comedy about video games (and a whole lot of other stuff) that, unlike so many blockbusters of the moment, does not collapse under the weight pop-culture references and forget to make actual jokes.
Reynolds stars as a guy named Guy. He’s an affable, albeit generic, bank teller who, unbeknownst to him and those around him, is a non-player character inside a massive, multiplayer online (MMO) game called Free City. The game is packed with various Heroes, player-controlled characters who wreak havoc and demolish the city on a regular basis. Guy is unperturbed by this, perfectly content to live out the same identical bank robbery over and over again, as long as he can occasionally enjoy some bubblegum ice-cream with his security guard friend Buddy (Lil Rel Howery).
That all changes when Guy crosses paths with Molotov Girl (Jodie Comer), a highly skilled player whose appearance is totally not a ripoff of Trinity from The Matrix. Guy finds out that Molotov Girl is actually a game developer named Millie Rusk behind the screen – and she’s checking it alongside her friend and co-developer Walter “Keys” McKey (Joe Keery), who are controlling her from the real world to find proof that their code was stolen by the game’s lead developer, Antwan (Taika Waititi, in the best fake French Canadian accent I’ve ever heard). Millie turns Guy into a Hero, after a legitimately funny take on the tired and true “meet cute,” by hacking his code alongside Keys to give him HeroVision. This is simply a set of Google Glass-influenced glasses that turn their wearer into a player character and reveal a whole range of possibilities within the game, and Guy breaks out of his loop through this as he helps Millie in her search through leveling up as a character. He starts that quest as a way to win her affections, but slowly comes to realize the full implications behind his strange existence.
While there are quite a few films that run on video game logic, Free Guy is really unique in that it’s a movie about video games that runs on video game logic, which a lot of movies based on video games did not do. There are some genuinely funny bits of physical comedy sprinkled throughout, mostly from Reynolds and Comer, as well as some memorable quips courtesy of Reynolds. Aside from this, the cameos from real-life streamers, YouTubers, and television presenters noticing this “blue shirted guy” killing and teabagging everyone to level up, which includes Jacksepticeye, Pokimane, Ninja, and Jeopardy host Alex Trebek, are surprising and fun, but instantly date the film as a product of a particular moment in time.
Taika Waititi’s portrayal as Antwan stands out as the most memorable and funny performance in Free Guy, apart from Guy himself. A caricature of the typical game executive clad in clothes that make him look like a bottom-tier Batman villain, he saunters across the screen with a flamboyant asshole charm while spouting off about the importance of IPs, sequels, and profit percentages. It’s hard to take him seriously in any given scene, which is probably the point, and although he and Guy never interact directly, the two characters make for an interesting contrast of people in and around gaming.
The first half of Free Guy is a really solid comedy, with several great gags and subtle background nods to popular video game franchises. But in the the film’s latter half, and especially in its final act, Free Guy starts dabbling with a whole mess of ideas, including, but not limited to, performative online personas, collective action as a catalyst for systemic change, gun violence in America, a rebuke of toxic online behavior, and regrettably, a deus ex machina resolution powered entirely by highly recognizable licensed IP. Despite this, it really doesn’t fail in any of those regards, and still makes for a good story by the end of the day. Free Guy, then, almost functions as a warning about the dangers of capitalism and consumerism, especially as young people are exposed to them via video games, as well as how gaming culture has often “changed the rules” of business and changed how producers and creators view intellectual property. This film will be a reference point, a teaching tool, and for some developers, even a guidebook for survival. The game itself could even have allegorical significance due to how it embraces all those messages in the second half.
Free Guy is a funny, yet frantic and quasi-schizophrenic, movie, bringing forth an idea of video game life as a “utopian” simulation like SimCity with the violence and toxic playerbase of Fortnite. It is a clearly a video game movie, but it’s not about any one video game in particular. It covers the meanings behind interactions in games, and the personal and social connections people form through them. It’s also a story about a man blithely stumbling through an existential crisis to reclaim agency over his own life, and inspire others to the same. It’s a movie for gamers, embracing all aspects of their culture – as one myself, I enjoyed Free Guy a great deal, and it certainly lives up to the hype. Its rewatch-ability is definitely high in my book.
4.5/5 STARS