After a year-long Covid-19 delay, Free Guy by Shawn Levy finally hit the screens of cinemas worldwide. The unexpectedly solid action comedy film surprised many experts, grossing almost $51 million over the first weekend worldwide.
Free Guy tells the story of an average bank clerk, Guy (Ryan Reynolds), who unexpectedly discovers he is just a non-player character (NPC) in a computer game called Free City, which is soon to go offline. Guy decides to become the hero of the story and save the world he loves from destruction.
The whole idea could have easily turned into another soulless film about a protagonist trying to better themself. However, the main advantage of the film is that it subverts these expectations, while maintaining the classic attributes of pursuits, destruction, and guns. Moreover, because of events occurring inside the actual game, the aesthetics are more vivid to the eye.
Above all, the tone of Free Guy is fun, owing to NPC one-liners, non-vulgar humour, and the individuality of charismatic characters themselves, from Guy and Molotov Girl (Jodie Comer) to Buddy (Lil Rel Howery) and the person who would not lower his arms, alongside sometimes confusing in-game scenes. These factors create a light atmosphere and make the film an easy watch.
However, despite everything said above, Free Guy is also a good drama, with some of Guy’s dilemmas resembling those of Truman in the classic 1998 film The Truman Show. As with Truman, the audience here understands more and more the severity of Guy’s problems as the plot develops and more discoveries are made, proving some issues to not be as trivial as once believed.
The film raises many philosophical topics like free will, the importance of self-realisation, and the butterfly effect, and shows how influential even minor choices in life can be. The great thing is that these elements alternate with the fun action episodes creating a very dynamic watch.
One criticism is that the in-game world could be made more modern. Free Guy has the same problem as Mythic Quest by Apple TV – it talks about how great the game is, but in fact the visuals and mechanics are from a few years ago, and includes traits of many real games like Fortnite or GTA, but massively downscaled. Besides, sometimes the film goes too deep into the gaming jargon making it difficult to understand for casual viewers.
That said, the graphics look colourful and are very eye-catching, especially because of references to other films and games. The film also has a great soundtrack with famous tracks like Make Your Own Kind of Music as featured in Sex Education.
Overall, Free Guy is a lighter, humorous version of The Truman Show. It unexpectedly turned out to be a great watch and was definitely worth the wait. It’s a must-see movie for all audiences, and has the potential to become an audience favourite and may just be one of the best entertainment films of the year.
4/5 stars