Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my movie review.
You know my friends, i think i've done almost plenty of movies starring Ryan Reynolds. Because i think its because i always enjoying how fun he is for his performances, whether he's playing as a mutant-human in his red and black spandex with his infinite recover despite having a cancer, an electric rat talking to a detective kid to dealing with a missing father, or perhaps a teen caveboy who's evolved to going on adventure with cave family (In second though, maybe il review The Croods in the future.). But what if we trying to finding a new idea out of hat, how about Ryan Reynolds in a digital world?
"Free Guy" is a 2021 sci-fi action comedy film that was directed/produced by Shawn Levy, co-produced by Ryan Reynolds (Because of course), Sarah Schechter, Greg Berlanti and Adam Kolbrenner and written by Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn (for only screenplay).
The idea of the film came back in 2016 when came with his spec script to 20th Century Fox, which he took 3 weeks on his plan. However one year later while in development, the studio's ownership 21st Century Fox was purchased by Disney with over US$71.3 billion, despite the ridiculous price that Disney took over (along with questionable name changing tp "20th Century Studio", bleugh...!), but they eventually kept in development for the idea of crazy adventure in a digital world.
So, with all that said, will we save ourselves in a battle royal world, or do we deserve to be D-listed by the creator?
Well, lets find out.
The Story
Have you guys ever heard "Ready Player One"? The movie about trying finding the treasure behind the owner of OASIS? Which i reviewed it from 3 years ago? Well, imagine that, but if you're an A.I. That's exactly what its like for the story.
It takes place in the video game called "Free City", an MMO battle royal like game that takes place in a large city. We introduce the guy in a blue shirt simply name "Guy", a bank teller who lives peacefully in Free City when players are killing each others. However, he was distracted by a player named "MolotovGirl" (aka Millie Rusk in real life), who turns out she's looking for source code that was stolen when she's working for (mainly making her own game), thanks to the company Soonami's douchey owner Antwan Hovachelik. So not only Guy is trying learn how to play liker a gamer, but also trying his best to helping her for her goal with her friend like Keys (aka Walter McKay), without realizing when despite he likes to be like player, he's in fact NPC.
Like i said before, its somewhat similar to "Ready Player One", but what if you flipped upside down where the A.I. just want to do like us as online players, which is exactly why the movie wanted to investing our main NPC, you wanted him that he wants to do whatever he wants than being stuck as a bank teller, especially how he tries to become a player, whether the A.I. just does whatever it wants or some people question if its a glitch. But of course, the main plot of this movie is to stop Free City when Antwan stole the source code from Millie that screwing over he plan where not only she tries break in the boundaries of game, but also an ongoing lawsuit for its reason, its another plot where a game (but also a developer) going against the authority, instead of collecting rewards, its collecting source code from her original game plan "Life itself". But to be fair, i think the writing of this movie is pretty good for say the least, especially with the humors that i have a great laugh, from hilarious fight and one time that one play screaming in game because of his mom doing noising chores, which they make a laughing execution, both the timing and a delivery. Even if the downside is that while we want to dealing to the source code robbery, but the movie is probably focused too much on Guy that again, invest our hero.
While the which plot focus is confusing, but at least its fun from following the plot, good writing and its funny.
The Presentation
Since this movie taken place in the digital world known as "Free City" and video game quality, it looks pretty good.
For its setting, it looks pretty cool, though generic at the time, its just a typical city in "Free City" and a rich house with some pile of source codes, even though its not much special it has in the setting in "Free City". but at least it looks pretty in a video game world. though they started to film nice and clean from Boston's Financial District, though they mainly filmed around in Massachusetts like Worcester, Framingham, Weymouth and Revere Beach.
As for the effects and the design, they looks pretty cool and it has some surprising moments for any gaming fans like me. the special effects look pretty cool for the actions and some some of stuff appearing in the movie, whether the "heads-up display" (or HUD for short), a beautiful shot from the view or the action scenes or even some video games Easter Egg like Scorpion Tank from Halo, a Megabuster from Megaman (or Rockman in Japan) as well as some of Disney's products (not a Disney stuff like pixie dust or whatever, but their rights that they bought). See them if you noticed for fun.
As for the action scenes, since this movie taken place in a combination between GTA and Fortnite, there's always gotta be some creative gun fights and stuff, some are entertaining and even funny, especially for the execution from Reynolds's delivery.
The presentation is amazing for the filming, unique quality, some fascinating Easter Eggs and fun action scenes.
The Characters
When it comes to the characters in the movie, they're quite as likable or even interesting ones.
Lets starts with Guy himself (played by Ryan Reynolds), at first, he's a fun a respectful bank teller how he loves to live in Free City about his job and such with his best security guard pal "Buddy". But as the movie progress, he becoming curious and interested to becoming a player, which once again, building our main NPC hero to becoming a best "player", despite some people if its either a hack or a player using Guy's skin mod. As always, Ryan did a fun job to playing an A.I. with his morbid curiosity after first seeing an online player.
Next is MolotovGirl, aka Millie Rusk (played by Jodie Comer), a gamer/sorta developer who's on her mission to get her source code from Soonami for her own game "Life Itself". Even though she's the obvious badass main female in the movie, but she looks pretty in Free City that she appears to be like a badass style steampunk lady, but outside of video game, she looks fine too, even though she's on goal to get her code back with an ongoing legal battle. Of course, Jode is a nice work as a badass fem protagonist.
After that, we have Walter "Keys" McKey (played by Joe Keery), Though he works on Soonami, but he's also Millie's hacking partner that he also noticed that the source code was taken, which he follows suit to put Free City down for her. Even though he just comes off as a "blink you miss it" character, but he's also has a plot purpose to helping MolotovGirl for the source code too, but il give a credit for Keery, he did an ok work of his role.
Last up is Antwan Hovachelik (played by Taika Waititi). Man, this guy is something, right, he's a ruthless, narcissist and careless CEO of Soonami that he just wants his game to be a big deal and possibly mistreating employees while they making patches and making a "sequel" called "Free City 2" (kinda like EA, am right guys?). Unlike most of either ok or boring villains, this guy is quite of over the top of his personality, complete with his ego, being didn't give a S(bleep) and probably want to make money over his MMO game. Which il give a credit for Taika's delivery, eh?
As for the rest of the characters, there not much else to say either they're there for plot purposes or just for nothing, Buddy (played by Lil Rel Howery) who's Guy's best security guard pal, Mouser (played by Utkarsh Ambudkar, aka UTK the INC) who's Key's co-worker and being puppet by Antwan, Barista (played by Britne Oldford) who's just random player in Free City, Bombshell (played by a model Camille Kostek) who's just damsel with a player for... Reasons, and Revenjamin Buttons/Keith (played by Channing Tatum in game and Matty Cardarople outside of the game), who's a gamer who loves playing, but having a mommy problems, which it makes a funny moment that i laughed at.
Plus, much like video game Easter Eggs, the movie has a cameo, the most common are the Youtube/Twitch users that im probably familiar with names like Ninja (the pro Fortnite player), Pokimane and our fan-favorite Youtuber, Jacksepticeye.
Of course, there other celeb cameos on this film, one of which (that i have to bring one up) is our old pal Alex Trebek, who's the host of "Jeopardy!", but one year before the film was released, he was fighting from stage IV pancreatic cancer and passed away on November 8, 2020, making with Alex, Jeopardy is pretty much doomed with countless controversies, but that's a different story.
Even though the movie has quite of minimal of characters, but at least some of them are memorable.
And now for my final opinion of this film.
Overall, Free Guy is a fun movie, even if it has some flaws. The writing is nice and fun, the jokes are a worth of laugh, the presentation is good and the characters have some fascinating and some lovable.
Sure the movie may have some issues like what's the main plot either Guy likes to be a player or trying to regain the source code and the characters list is rather minimal that i wish there could be more, im just saying.
If you're fan of video games or if you want to see something better than "Ready Player One"?, this one is definitely recommended to watch and its a better "Ready Player One" film than the actual "Ready Player One" film. (ZING!)
For my rating, i wanted to giving it a perfect 10, but due to some flaws that i have, so i decided to give this movie an 8/10.
So this ends of my movie review, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on https://ko-fi.com/blackevil.
Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.
