Review: Free Guy

The FIRST truly PURE fun Summer Blockbuster of 2021, Free Guy is The Truman Show meets Tron meets Bruce Almighty.

The question isn’t should you see this film, it’s simply should you watch it in theaters?

The Plot

For any of the non-Gamers out there, Free Guy takes place in a shared video game experience; where you play against other real people, in real time, in increasingly open worlds.  ‘Super Mario Brothers’, this is not.

Or, just Google ‘Worlds of Warcraft’, or more specifically ‘Grand Theft Auto’ to see what MMORPGs, or ‘Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games’ look like.  The world of Ryan Reynolds‘ character ‘Guy’ or ‘Blue Shirt Guy’ looks exactly like one of these.

It’s all Guy’s World

Guy works as a bank teller in Free City.  Every morning, he puts on his blue shirt, grabs his morning coffee, and prepares for a day full of armed robberies.

As an NPC, or ‘Non-Playable Character’, Guy isn’t a character that game players use.  Instead, Guy is in the background with his fellow NPC’s, filling in the world to make it feel more real, sort of like an Extra in a movie.

Guy hangs out with his best friend, ‘Buddy’, and does his best to stay out of the way of the ‘Sunglass People’.  A simple life for a simple Guy.  That is, however, until he sees Molotov Girl, played by Jodie Comer, walking around town.  More than a little smitten, and now sentient, our Guy is.

Thor: Ragnorak Director Taika Waititi plays Antione, our villain, the head of the highly successful company behind Free City.  Under him, we have two low level programmers, Utkarsh Ambudkar‘s ‘Mouser’ and Joe Keery‘ ‘Keys’, tasked with fixing glitches in the system.  And, that glitch just so happens to be our guy, Guy!

The Good

The CGI of Free Guy

What?  Are you seeing this correctly?  Yes, I, Dragon Movie Guy, am listing the CGI as one of the ‘Good’ things in Free Guy.  

The CGI set extensions/locations, video game characters/explosions, and graphical overlays for the Sunglass People all look great.  The CGI doesn’t need to look photo realistic, per se, but the Effects need to seamlessly make you FEEL like you’re in a video game.  And, since video games are getting more realistic, to master that subtlety between video game and reality isn’t easy.

The Story

Without going deep into spoiler country, the story combines the best parts of The Truman Show, Bruce Almighty, and even Tron.

On the surface, the story pulls on many different elements and worlds to tell a clear and easy to follow narrative.  We jump around quite a bit, but each and every scene builds on the last.  Our characters are clearly defined, filling in their parts of the story.

Even the reveals flow naturally, adding layers of nuance and meaning, while furthering the plot.

Ryan Reynolds – Free Guy

Our lead actor has proven to be an expert at playing a dumb smartass, now he plays a smart dumbass.  What acting range!

Reynolds takes us into the Free City world of Guy, showing us a 3D world of 2D characters.  He adds a bit of humanity into digital characters; not designed to be much more than moving wallpaper.

Many actors might shift story focus onto the sentience of an artificial intelligence, but Reynolds keeps the story light and focused on the love story and saving his world.

He also injects his signature ‘Ryan Reynolds’ style of humor, but isn’t afraid to share the punchlines with his co-stars.  Jodie Comer, especially, benefits from the generosity of spirit.

The Bad – Free Guy

None

The Review – Free Guy

Director Shawn Levy (Night At The Museum, Date Night) and Writers Matt Lieberman (The Christmas Chronicles, Scoob!) and Zak Penn (X2: X-Men United, Marvel’s The Avengers); craft a fast moving, visually stunning Summer Blockbuster.

The film gives you everything you want from a light hearted Action Comedy, perfect for enjoying popcorn at the Cinema.  Levy, Lieberman, and Penn perfectly build Free Guy around Ryan Reynolds’ signature style, while using a ton of familiar tropes to tell an original story in a unique setting.

Gamers

Levy even includes famous real life Gamers like Pokimane, Lazarbeam, JackSepticeye, and DanTDM; to add authenticity to the Gamer culture shown in this film.

Free Guy perfectly achieves what it sets out to do; create fun movie going experience.  There’s just enough character development to add depth to our NPCs, and just enough humor and emotion to add meaning to all the fancy special effects and video gamer culture.

Most importantly, it’s F-U-N!  Go watch this: In Theaters!  The visuals are worth buying a ticket, and the filmmaking is worth repeated watching on Blu-Ray.

Additional Information

IMDb page

Free Guy Movie Review #fiveminutemoviereview on Dragon Movie Guy

Other Dragon Movie Guy Summer 2021 Reviews

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