Free Guy

This feel-good Disney hybrid of The Truman Show and Tron has a nice portion of enticing romance and action in the spirit of Ready Player One. It’s nicely cast and pleasantly colorful, with typically appealing cliché elements and some fine ideas. But the dramatic framework, with the characters’ motivations and reasons for doing what they do, is a bit slapdash. But it’s my problem that I want such a movie to be logically fleshed out and everything in it to make sense. (08/12/2021)

How long have I waited for a wild ride like this? I've lost count. There have been countless attempts, but Free Guy nails it. It's nerd heaven on a platter. Someone really let loose and made a film that I'm amazed even exists. If you love games like Grand Theft Auto (GTA) or Just Cause, you're going to be in bliss. For those who don't, it's still a blast of action and effects — digital overload and all. This movie is bursting with ideas, taking jabs at everything and everyone. Watching Ryan Reynolds as Guy, an NPC who starts to become self-aware, is an absolute delight from the moment he appears. And with a stellar cast including Jodie Comer, Joe Keery, Lil Rel Howery, and Taika Waititi, everyone is spot on. After all the chaos and fun, it’s surprising to realize that at its core, it’s a romantic film. Free Guy is full of surprises and the kind of movie you'll want to watch over and over, enjoying every scene, the fantastic soundtrack, and the feeling that this movie is something special. I've put this film right up there with Shaun of the Dead — it's that good. (10/03/2022)

The greatest chance of success that Free Guy has is with gamers around the age of ten, ideally those who play GTA and Fortnite, and who will surely grunt with delight. Otherwise, this is, in every respect, a half-hearted action comedy starring Ryan Reynolds with solid yet forgettable action, a below-average comedy element (pop-culture references and acting cameos are no guarantee that a joke will work and the attempt at striking one-liners misses the mark), and a formulaic story slapped together from motifs that have been seen many times before with better execution. Unlike The Truman Show, Free Guy doesn't work with any satirical level or deeper idea and it looks like Ready Player One’s much poorer and less imaginative cousin in terms of content; overall, its closer to the new Jumanji, with which it shares the inconsistency and ambiguity in the rules of its own fictional world and the ambition to entertain only casually without trying to have any kind of reach. In this respect, Free Guy works as light summer action entertainment thanks to, among other things, the professional technical aspect, an endearing subject about the lives of the game’s NPC characters and a likable cast. Nevertheless, it’s rendered in a way that doesn’t even come close to fully utilizing its strong potential. The result is that wherever Free Guy wants to be fateful, complex and absolutely thrilling, it remains only half-baked, superficial and generally mediocre. (08/15/2021)

Ready Free Guy One! The surprise of the summer and Shawn Levy at his best! I tipped Free Guy at around 60% before the premiere, and I'm really happy that it turned out to be an unexpected hit that will please all the nerds, fanboys and gameboys who grew up on GTA – this target audience will be the most excited, but the rest will have fun too. Ryan Reynolds is in his best role since Deadpool and fits in really well here – I think he took his performance here up another level. The film has a likeable world and story, an interesting plot, with countless ideas and references that had me thinking, this must have been thought up by a genius. Most of the game's Easter eggs are fun (Trolls exists ?), and the Marvel references must be making the rounds in memes all over the internet by now, because they had the whole cinema laughing. Apart from the playful and awesome visuals, the excellent and clear action, the leads have great chemistry, and the romantic line is warmly delivered. By the end I was literally crying with so much emotion that I could have sunk the Titanic with my tears. And then there is the shocking final twist (there are other twists, of course, but the final one had me on all fours, almost crawling out of the cinema). I was expecting a silly and entertaining movie, but I got the full package with everything and the big screen suits it. I enjoyed the whole two hours, and Taika Waititi as the bad guy was awesome. Story 4/5, Action 5/5, Humor 4/5, Violence 0/5, Fun 5/5 Music 4/5, Visuals 5/5, Atmosphere 4/5, Suspense 4/5, Emotion 4/5. 9/10. (08/17/2021)

Free Guy is Tron: Legacy strained through the sieve of Idiocracy, but instead of satarising bullshit, it gives the illusion of freedom with an ingratiating corporate smile. Free Guy shows the absurd degradation of the ideals of cyberpunk into a mediocre tale for a generation weaned on social-media myths about the exclusivity and brilliance of every individual. The film’s messianic romance, financed by the mega-corporation Disney, which is something that William Gibson never dreamed of, performs a diversion manoeuvre in the form of a cartoonish villain, while shoving prefabricated illusions, bought-off YouTube stars and its own bling down the throats of its adolescent target audience. It is also starting to be sad how Ryan Reynolds is becoming a slave to his doggedly constructed image as a bad-boy nerd as he begins to embody the cliché of 40-somethings playing young men chasing after would-be broad-minded women in their twenties. (11/28/2021)