Directing: B
Acting: B+
Writing: B
Cinematography: B
Editing: B
Special Effects: B+

Free Guy is unexceptional, but fun. In a way, it feels like a sign of some level of return to “normalcy,” with yet another ultimately generic action comedy available this weekend. What it comes to the options we have today in particular, it gets the job done. I was adequately entertained.

I suppose this relatively indifferent approach might seem unfair to the millions of gamers out there who are part of a gargantuan group to which I do not belong, and their possible delight in the many “easter eggs” and in-references Free Guy offers them. That, in itself, is fair. This movie was quite definitively not made for me. I still thought it looked fun, though. I am not impervious to the ample charms of Ryan Reynolds. That even I still managed to have a good time is very much to this movie’s credit.

I keep thinking about its visual component—not just the CGI, of which there is a lot, but its overall aesthetic. Most of the story takes place within the world of a video game, and the visuals very much fit the part. I mean, at least based on my limited knowledge of gaming; I haven’t played any video game (aside from, say, Solitaire or Words with Friends) with any regularity since 1989. Still, the visual palate of Free Guy, which is convincingly rendered, packed with detail, and overall just really busy, feels very much of its time. This means that ten or twenty years from now, it will still look just like video game design did in 2020. Will that make it seem dated, or more sort of “retro” in feel? I say this as though any notable number of people will be re-watching Free Guy in 2030 or 2040. This is really just a movie made for its present moment, but at least it succeeds in that aim.

Some of the concept elements are fairly refreshing. Reynolds plays the titular Guy, an NPC (“Non Player Character”) usually existing as background in a given video game, who becomes self-aware. Of course, this is hardly a new concept, but whenever computer programs became “alive” in movies of the past (Electric Dreams, Short Circuit, The Terminator), they did so either via magic or freak power surges, or due to the fabled “singularity.” In this case, Guy has become self-aware by design: an algorithmic program that is designed to learn and grow and evolve. I’m not saying this is necessarily any more plausible than outright magic, but given the rapid growth of AI technology, it’s a hell of a lot more believable.

Guy falls for a player, Millie (Killing Eve’s Jodi Comer), who is searching for proof inside the game that the billionaire owner of the game’s parent company (played with a simmering intensity, but not quite as consistently funny as he was clearly going for, by Taika Waitit) stole the original programming designed by her, in part with partner Keys (Joe Keery). Millie and Keys are longtime friends clearly destined to realize they are meant for each other.

The idea that finding this proof of theft necessitates movement through the world of the video game, as in movies like TRON, is patently ridiculous, of course. But with a movie like this, ridiculousness is the point. The sensory overload of the world inside the video game was often a bit much for me, but clearly designed to replicate the random chaos of a game in which players are tasked with robbing and murdering and blowing shit up. When Guy decides he’ll “level up” by becoming a popular hero and confiscating other players’ guns, the messaging isn’t all that subtle. But, neither does it get beat over your head; Free Guy is much more concerned with being an unchallenging entertainment than it is with being preachy.

Besides, Ryan Reynolds’s “aw shucks” innocence as a bank teller who just wants to be nice to everyone, with a wide-eyed and childlike sensibility, is kind of irresistible. Free Guy would not be half as entertaining as it is without his lead performance. The countless cameos, many of them quick voice-over work for other NPCs, are just icing on the cake. Also, there’s a climactic battle between Guy and an “upgraded” but unfinished and therefore far beefier yet dumber version of himself, in which they manage to throw in weapons and tools from other famous franchises. This is the kind of thing that could easily play as misguided and stupid, but in the capable hands of director Shawn Levy, it’s easy to get a kick out of it.

That’s the overall gist of Free Guy, really. It’s an easy way to get a kick out of something for a couple of hours. You won’t continue caring much after it’s over, but that doesn’t detract from the fun you’ve had in the moment.

*The only world he ever knew . . . was not what he thought it was!*

Overall: B