What if your life existed in a video game? Free Guy, a new family movie starring Ryan Reynolds, features a non-player character (NPC) as its lead. Guy, the NPC, lives in a video game with the sole purpose of entertaining actual players—until he meets a girl who changes the way he goes about his day-to-day life. Free Guy is a lighthearted film that explores the complexity of love.
The movie can be closely compared to Jim Carrey’s The Truman Show and 1988 film They Live. Its contents are intentionally artificial, leaving plenty of room for personal speculation. Banking a grand total of $300,000,000 in global box-office revenue since its August 13 release, Free Guy’s success can be credited to Reynolds’s performance. The movie—packed with fun cameos and numerous references to video games, movies and pop culture—appeals to a generation of young, gaming viewers.
The movie begins with a Groundhog Day-inspired sequence: the protagonist is stuck in a repetitive cycle of work, waking up, and pleasing Free City’s (the game’s title) players. Guy, an average person, meets an atypical character Molotov Girl, played by Jodie Comer. Keys (Joe Keery) teams up with Molotov Girl in an attempt to take down Free City’s corporation, headed by an evil CEO (Taika Waititi) who stole the code for an indie game the two collectively developed. With the help of Reynolds’ Guy, the duo circles in on their goal.
The movie’s humor is playful, making it a perfect pick for family movie nights. Everybody can find something enjoyable in it, even if that means poking fun at the film. While not entirely realistic in its portrayal of video game features, Free Guy incorporates enough overused gaming clichés to make itself archly and self-consciously funny.
Director Shawn Levy taps into our cultural obsession with the digital world, and viewers can put themselves in the shoes of both players and NPCs. A specific scene near the climactic finish of the film features Avengers music and an appearance of Captain America’s renowned shield. Cameos of internet personalities are sprinkled throughout Free Guy, connecting viewers to the movie. There are many opportunities to laugh, but you need to allow yourself to do so.
Of the few mainstream movies being released right now, Free Guy is not one you will want to miss. It is one of the first successful video game movies (if not the first) for good reason. Free Guy is over-the-top and ridiculous, conveying real-life emotions to a relatively young audience.
