"Free Guy" zippy, gaming-savvy fun but also sweet and wise

Free Guy (2021)

For a conceptually ambitious, gaming-savvy hybrid with code of other movies—“The Truman Show,” “Wreck-It Ralph,” “The LEGO Movie,” “Ready Player One,” and probably many others—“Free Guy” doesn’t just feel like derivative ones and zeroes. Real care and imagination have been put into making this a delightful blast, along with a sincere heart. It’d be so easy for “Free Guy” to present a clever concept and do very little with it, but journeyman director Shawn Levy (2014’s “Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb”), working from a quick-witted script by Matt Lieberman (2020’s “SCOOB!”) and Zak Penn (2018’s “Ready Player One”), takes it to a higher level. It’s dizzyingly funny, but also wise, zippy, and unexpectedly sweet — and it will make an earworm out of Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy.”

Ryan Reynolds is his amiable, sarcastic-without-being-smarmy, smile-after-every-joke self as Guy, a wide-eyed, cheerfully simple bank teller who goes about the same bland routine every day in Free City. Even as violence and bank heists swirl around him and his best friend, security guard Buddy (Lil Rel Howery), Guy maintains his friendly, “don’t have a good day, have a great day” attitude and his morning diet of a medium coffee with two sugars. As it turns out, “Free City” is actually a “Grand Theft Auto”-inspired video game and he’s an NPC (Non-Player Character) in the background, while nearly everyone else is controlled by a gamer in the real world. Once Guy catches the eye of British badass Molotov Girl (Jodie Comer) and puts on a pair of cool sunglasses, it opens his eyes to the realization that he doesn’t just belong in the background. He takes her advice to “level up” and do good deeds instead of committing violent acts; when Guy goes rogue and becomes a viral sensation known as “Blue Shirt Guy,” he is finally able to think for himself. Meanwhile, Molotov Girl is actually the avatar of Millie, a video game programmer who created “Free City” with Keys (Joe Keery) and needs to find proof within the game to expose Antwan (Taika Waititi), also Keys’ boss, for stealing their code.

“Free Guy” is sensory overload at times, albeit always in a good way. There’s just enough world-building for Free City to understand the mechanics without getting bogged down. Toggling between the virtual world and the real world sounds overly complicated, and then adding in a time-loop of sorts, but director Shawn Levy finds a deft balance. The film is buoyant in tone and always on the go but never at the detriment of spending quality time with these characters to make them matter. Ryan Reynolds does what Ryan Reynolds does best with charisma and more sincerity as Guy, an NPC with newfound agency. But the always-likable Joe Keery and a warm, adorably funny Jodie Comer (TV’s “Killing Eve”) more than hold their own. Comer, in particular, gets dual roles as Millie and Molotov Girl, equally bringing comedic timing to both, and as both characters, she runs the show and saves the day. Taika Waititi brings a whole lot of caffeine-infused ham to greedy video game developer Antwan, who dresses like a hipster and calls everyone “bro.” His over-the-top riffing is clearly intentional for the obnoxious character, but a little of Antwan does go a long way. 

Exuberant without being exhausting, “Free Guy” is an end-of-the-summer surprise. A fun concept is just the first step, but director Levy, a smarter-than-expected script, and a charming cast go all the way in the execution. Even a single line about gun violence, which may sound iffy or tone-deaf on paper, is made funny and germane to the free-for-all video game world. Without divulging any details, there is some studio merging in the third act with cameos that could be considered audience pandering, but it is delivered with such ecstatic surprise and affection for pop-cultural fandom. After the latest “Jumanji” movies, this is the most fun you will ever have watching someone else play a video game. And, like the characters’ favorite ice cream flavor, “Free Guy” is as sweet as bubblegum ice cream.

Grade: B

20th Century Studios is releasing “Free Guy” (115 min.) in theaters on August 13, 2021.