Free Guy Review: Ryan Reynolds Stars In The Best Video Game Movie Ever

Free Guy is uproariously fun, delightfully charming and unexpectedly sweet, with Ryan Reynolds perfectly in his element balancing action and comedy.

Over the years, Hollywood has notoriously struggled with video game movies; adaptations of popular IP have failed to connect with critics and casual moviegoers, and at the box office – with some exceptions. Free Guy is a different kind of video game movie. Rather than adapt a real game, Matt Lieberman (Scoob!, The Christmas Chronicles) and Zak Penn’s (Ready Player One) script follows a non-player character – NPC – in a fictional open world shooter called Free City. Director Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum) then brings the world of Free City to life as a surreal version of our reality, but one with no less humanity. Free Guy is uproariously fun, delightfully charming and unexpectedly sweet, with Ryan Reynolds perfectly in his element balancing action and comedy.

In the world of Free City, Free Guy follows the NPC named Guy (Reynolds), who works at a bank with his best friend Buddy (Lil Rel Howery). But everything changes for him when he sees the player character of Millie (Jodie Comer) and he breaks from his programmed loop, acquiring a pair of sunglasses that distinguish the players from the NPCs. When Millie explains that Guy needs to level up, which players can accomplish by doing bad things, Guy goes his own route, leveling up by being the good guy. Outside of the game, Guy becomes a viral phenomenon, and Millie realizes he might be able to help in her lawsuit against Free City’s publisher, Soonami, and its owner Antwan (Taika Waititi). She believes Antwan stole the game she developed with her best friend Keys (Joe Keery) who, instead of helping her, is content to work at Soonami with his friend Mouser (Utkarsh Ambudkar). As a result, Millie enlists the help of Guy to help prove her case and save Free City before Antwan can destroy the evidence.

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