Free Guy (2021) Review

 Hey everyone! I'm back for my next movie review. This time I'll be reviewing the new Ryan Reynolds action comedy, Free Guy. Let's get into it.

Trailers can be very deceiving. As was the case with the trailer for Free Guy. The trailer only shows Ryan Reynolds's character and the world of the video game he lives in. So it tricks you into believing this is another over the top action comedy like Deadpool and Deadpool 2 are. Trust me, it's not. I've avoided the reviews of this movie, because I wanted to see it for myself so I don't know whether people like it or not. However, I have seen from the Wikipedia article on it, that people compare it to Ready Player One and The Truman Show as well as games like Grand Theft Auto and Fortnite. And I can definitely see some similarities. But, the entire time I was watching the movie, I keep thinking that the movie reminded me of Tron more than Ready Player One or The Truman Show. Mostly because the real story of the movie, finding evidence that a game development company's owner stole/plagiarized someone else's game(s), is similar though there are some massive differences. For example, this movie splits the time between the real world and the world of the video game more evenly than Tron did. Also this movie has characters I could connect with within the video game world, which, as you know from my Tron review, was my biggest problem with that movie since I am such a character guy.

Ryan Reynolds is one of those actors who is very hit or miss with me. And that's probably because I'm not interested in many of the movies he's in. While it's not a good movie, I really liked him as Hal Jordan in Green Lantern, and I enjoy him as Deadpool even though I generally don't like that character. But outside of those, I generally don't have much interest in the movies he's in. He was great in Free Guy though. I'm also not a fan of Taika Waititi, which is a hot take, I know, but it's true. I just don't get his sense of humour and I really thought his character in Green Lantern was pointless. Since then he's become really popular, particularly as a director, and I just don't get his films. That doesn't mean he's a bad filmmaker or a bad actor, I just don't get him. He was good in this movie though as the the film's antagonist, Antwan.

My favourite characters in this movie though are Millie, played by Jodie Comer, and Keys, played by Joe Keery. I almost didn't recognize Keery at first. I've only seen the first season of Stranger Things and I haven't seen Keery in anything else besides that, so I didn't recognize him because he wasn't in the '80s in this movie. Plus he wore glasses for much of the movie so that changed his look a little bit. I thought Keys and Millie had a good dynamic. Particularly later in the movie once they start working together against Antwan.

There were a ton of cameos in this movie. Mostly in the real world side of things. There were a bunch of video game YouTubers, who I don't know because I'm not heavy into the gaming side of YouTube and tons of celebrities like Dwayne Johnson as a bank robber NPC character in the game, and even Chris Evans shows up near the end of the movie. Which was funny. However, my favourite cameo was Alex Trebek on the set of Jeopardy!, which he filmed prior to his death.

I think I got into this movie because of the director. Greg Berlanti is a producer on the movie, but it was directed by Shawn Levy, who directed Big Fat Liar, Cheaper by the Dozen, and the Night at the Museum series, of which I've only seen the first movie of, as well as episodes of Animorphs. I love all three of the previous movies of his that I've seen, so knowing that he did this movie too just elevated it for me.

Honestly Free Guy is such a stupid movie but it's stupid in the best way possible. It's a movie that I probably would've watched had it come out when I was in high school. It's not the nostalgia fest that Ready Player One is, and it's not the technical masterpiece that Tron is. It's just a fun movie and I really enjoyed it. I highly recommend you watch it. Then again, I haven't watched any other movies from 2021 yet, except for Luca and I loved that.

Okay, one more movie review to go and then I'll have season reviews for a show that really sucked me in. The next movie review is for Love, Simon. So I'll see you in that review. Later.