- Title: Free Guy
- IMDb: link
While you could certainly turn down some of the Deapool-esqe winking at the audience, and the plot is certainly not breaking the mold on the type of story we’ve seen done before, Free Guy is easily one of most fun movies of 2021. Ryan Reynolds stars as a non-player character in the world’s most popular video game who breaks outside of his programing and starts to become more than he was designed to be. What makes things work is Blue Shirt Guy, or simply Guy, is immensely likable. He’s just a good guy whose head has been turned by a beautiful girl (Jodie Comer) and begins making changes to his life that effect both the video game world and the perception of it in the real world.
As Guy discovers what it’s like to be one of the “sunglass people” he begins accumulating experience by being a hero in an Grand Theft Auto-style game which was designed to cash-in on players’ worst impulses, instantly making him a phenomenon. While not as interesting, the real world story involving the douchebag of a game owner (Utkarsh Ambudkar) and the two game developers (Comer and Joe Keery) whose code he built his game on (without crediting them), adds context to Guy’s awakening and how it in turn affects other NPCs within the world. All told, Guy’s journey may not be all that deep or insightful, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a fun ride.
