FREE GUY review: Ryan Reynolds leads a fun and heartfelt tribute to gamers worldwide

Free Guy was one of the first major Hollywood tentpoles to have its release plans thwarted due to the coronavirus, but the Ryan Reynolds-in-a-video-game movie you’ve been seeing trailers for since last year has finally arrived.

Reynolds stars as Guy, a Non-Playable Character (NPC for short) in a massive open-world video game called Free City. Blissfully unaware of his fate, he lives his life in a Groundhog Day-like pattern, working at a bank alongside his best friend/security guard Buddy (Lil Rel Howery). The pair have their routine down pat; every day the bank endures a violent hold-up, which they treat as a regular and expected daily occurrence (it barely even registers as an inconvenience).

Inspired by a chance encounter with a strikingly badass woman named Molotov Girl (Jodie Comer) that breaks up his day-to-day routine. Guy quickly discovers that putting on a pair of sunglasses the more exclusive citizens of Free City sport (a nice tribute to They Live) opens up the hidden aspects of Free City that are kept from the NPCs. The world behind the curtain is a loud and crass place that literally rewards acts of mischief and ultra-violence. Instead of joining along, Guy (who quickly becomes known as Blue Shirt Guy) becomes a sort of celebrity within the game and in “real life,” by succeeding at the game simply by being nice and helpful.

If that message sounds a little heavy-handed, it’s nonetheless one of the more charming aspects of Free Guy, a movie that is decidedly not lacking in charm in any way. Reynolds’ “aww-shucks” persona may not be for everyone, but it fits in perfectly here in a role that has him evolve from a pleasant simpleton into a quasi-revolutionary in under two hours. Reynolds’ breezy persona is a perfect match with Howery’s own loveable attitude, and Free Guy is at its best when acting as a buddy movie between these two highly likeable partners.

After some pretty fun shenanigans following Guy taking down the assorted scum of Free City, we learn that Guy’s newfound view of the world wasn’t accidental. In the physical world, Molotov Girl is Millie (Comer), a video game designer who imbued an open-world game with A.I. with her partner Walter (Joe Keery) before their game was bought and shelved by the tyrannical owner of a video game company (Taika Waititi). Once they realize that their original software is hidden inside of Free World, Molotov Girl heads back in the game to help Guy unlock the secret before the secret world is lost forever.

Free Guy serves as the ultimate easter egg hunt for hardcore gaming fans who will be able to spot tributes to blockbuster games throughout Free City (not to mention the copious appearances of real-life YouTube gaming stars). And without spoiling anything, the film also features a moment of fan-service that geeks have been salivating about since the Disney/Fox merger was first announced.

Director Shawn Levy does a solid job of balancing all of the film’s disparate elements into something cohesive, resulting in the sort of big-budget action-comedy-romance hybrid that actually succeeds on every front. The script by Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn also manages to appease gamers with enough in-jokes to keep them on their toes, while allowing for some welcome character beats from the leads, along with a surprisingly effective romantic subplot.

In many ways, Free Guy wants to have it all. The film is both a love letter to violent games like Grand Theft Auto as well as a repudiation of those types of games that reward players for causing wanton death and destruction. Ultimately, Free Guy is a fun and heartfelt movie about personal choice, and how we choose to spend our short time in both the physical and virtual worlds. With the constant stream of news reports that high-stress and low-paying jobs can’t seem to find enough staff during the pandemic, the long-delayed Free Guy seems to have come out at just the right moment, with people around the world collectively beginning to assert their worth. The sunglasses are on for good now.

Free Guy is in theatres now.