The plot of this film concerns an extremely realistic looking world in an online, open-world action video game called "Free City" which is very popular amongst gamers in the real world. An ordinary looking person in that game, called "Guy" (played by Ryan Reynolds), starts having a very disruptive effect on people who play the game in the real world...as well as characters in the game itself. As we later get a glimpse into the real world, we learn that there is some drama between the makers of the game and other game developers. This tension supplies the action quotient of the film, which plays out in both the real world and the world of the game.
"Free guy" ("Free Guy"?) has elements of fairytale, action, comedy and romance. Some way into this film, I was thinking that it might have worked better as entertainment if it was aimed at a much younger audience, as in being an actual Disney family film, where the whole family could watch it and enjoy it. On many fronts it functions on that level, from the comedy, to the action and to the romance, with the latter being very chaste. However, there is one scene very early on where a character gets a very badly broken nose, which is not pleasant to look at, so moments like that definitely rule out a younger audience, even though it is otherwise a Disney kind of family film in most other respects. That being said, the humour is at times queer in this film, uncomfortably so at times, though not without raising a smile, like the scene where Ryan's best friend "Buddy"(! Played by Lil Rel Howery) gets friendly with a familiar looking big, strapping bloke.
"Guy", as played by Ryan Reynolds is pretty much a variation on the character he's played in all the other films that I've seen him in recently, like "Hobbs & Shaw" and the "Deadpool" films. In this film, Reynolds turns his usual schtick up to "4". It makes me wonder if Reynolds contributes dialogue to the characters that he plays or whether he has a usual collaborator who comes up with this kind of weird stuff. His dialogue can be inappropriate yet amusing, for instance when he makes religious references.
For what it's worth, I managed to work out the mystery surrounding Guy before the characters which brought my attention to this mystery.
"Free guy/Guy" did bring to mind other films that I have seen, like "The matrix" (I see no reason why you couldn't also get philosophical and deep with this film) and a couple of other films for specific elements, like "Dark City" (with regard to a location in the film) and "They live" (which I haven't seen but the thing with sunglasses here reminded me of what I read about the older film). Looking at a review online, I was reminded of "The Truman show" which would also be a point of comparison for this release.
Watching this film, it was tracking to score 70% from me but leading up to the halfway point it wasn't really doing it for me, so I was looking to score it maybe 67.5+%. However, from the second half onward I found myself laughing more and getting more out of the film. That's just to say that I found it reasonably entertaining without regarding it as the best example of a Hollywood 'popcorn' film. I enjoyed Reynolds' performance more in "Hobbs & Shaw" (going on memory) and I liked "Boss level" more, which also has a video game element to it (I've reviewed both films here). However, "Free Guy" does work on a slightly-inappropriate-for-a-Disney-film level.
"Free guy" ("Free Guy"?) has elements of fairytale, action, comedy and romance. Some way into this film, I was thinking that it might have worked better as entertainment if it was aimed at a much younger audience, as in being an actual Disney family film, where the whole family could watch it and enjoy it. On many fronts it functions on that level, from the comedy, to the action and to the romance, with the latter being very chaste. However, there is one scene very early on where a character gets a very badly broken nose, which is not pleasant to look at, so moments like that definitely rule out a younger audience, even though it is otherwise a Disney kind of family film in most other respects. That being said, the humour is at times queer in this film, uncomfortably so at times, though not without raising a smile, like the scene where Ryan's best friend "Buddy"(! Played by Lil Rel Howery) gets friendly with a familiar looking big, strapping bloke.
"Guy", as played by Ryan Reynolds is pretty much a variation on the character he's played in all the other films that I've seen him in recently, like "Hobbs & Shaw" and the "Deadpool" films. In this film, Reynolds turns his usual schtick up to "4". It makes me wonder if Reynolds contributes dialogue to the characters that he plays or whether he has a usual collaborator who comes up with this kind of weird stuff. His dialogue can be inappropriate yet amusing, for instance when he makes religious references.
For what it's worth, I managed to work out the mystery surrounding Guy before the characters which brought my attention to this mystery.
"Free guy/Guy" did bring to mind other films that I have seen, like "The matrix" (I see no reason why you couldn't also get philosophical and deep with this film) and a couple of other films for specific elements, like "Dark City" (with regard to a location in the film) and "They live" (which I haven't seen but the thing with sunglasses here reminded me of what I read about the older film). Looking at a review online, I was reminded of "The Truman show" which would also be a point of comparison for this release.
Watching this film, it was tracking to score 70% from me but leading up to the halfway point it wasn't really doing it for me, so I was looking to score it maybe 67.5+%. However, from the second half onward I found myself laughing more and getting more out of the film. That's just to say that I found it reasonably entertaining without regarding it as the best example of a Hollywood 'popcorn' film. I enjoyed Reynolds' performance more in "Hobbs & Shaw" (going on memory) and I liked "Boss level" more, which also has a video game element to it (I've reviewed both films here). However, "Free Guy" does work on a slightly-inappropriate-for-a-Disney-film level.