Review: Free Guy (2021)
You might have to work a bit harder to suspend your disbelief, especially if you have even an inkling of how computers, software, and specifically games work. But if you can manage that, Free Guy is definitely great popcorn fun with heart.
A romantic comedy action flick, Free Guy follows the titular guy Guy (a very on form Ryan Reynolds), a non-player character in the aggressively violent GTA Online (I guess?) spoof videogame Free City, as he awakens to consciousness through a chance meeting with MolotovGirl (Jodie Comer). Things escalate, virtual worlds are imperiled and the evils of capitalism* and the patriarchy are slightly touched upon.
The story and script work well enough, other than the aforementioned “that’s not how computers work!”. Early on somebody says something along the lines of “I love code. Words lie, but ones and zeroes, they don’t lie.” But of course the first thing we did once we invented computers was create code specifically so we could use words to control computers, and not ones and zeroes. There are quite a few of these weird niggles (do players type ‘/cry’ when they cry in-game? Would the bad guys have won had they simply shut down their servers?), but I guess that’s missing the forest for the trees.
Free Guy is not a movie about a game, it’s about ‘inconsequential’ people finding their strength and purpose and throwing off the shackles of the system that enslaved them. Yeah, pretty topical. And … it works? Kinda? What stuck with me weren’t the cool-but-weird CGI setpieces (“that’s not how games work!” I yelled at no-one in particular in my head), but the smaller moments, whether it’s Taika Waititi hamming it up as an inept rockstar developer, Guy having a heartfelt talk with his best friend about what is real, the art nerd (sorry, that’s the actual credit) gleefully watching her shitty company implode, or the great little cameo near the end, with appropriate musical cue.
Make no mistake, this is a behemoth of popcorn movie that revels in its spoofs and references. But it tells a story about people finding their voice and their power, and it does this in a fun and entertaining way. And sometimes that’s more than enough.
* The final exchange of the movie is this:
- Where is the bank?
- There is no bank.
- So, what do we do?
- Whatever we want.
If that’s not an anti-capitalist message, I don’t know what is.
