Freedom in 'Free Guy'

The photo shows a movie director's clapboard at nine o'clock, and a serving of popcorn in a red and white bucket at eight o'clock, all against a white background, with a sign that reads "MOVIE TIME" in red letters across the top;"with" in yellow near the middle; and "Jon Ochiai" in red from the center out to three o'clock. Altogether: "Movie Time with Jon Ochiai." At four o'clock, there are five golden colored stars under the name, and at six o'clock, two golden colored movie tickets that read Admit One. Jon Ochiai is the author of the movie review associated with this branded image.

Most of director Shawn Levy’s Free Guy exists in the video game world of Free City, the world literally defined by code, 1’s and 0’s. In Free City, those wearing sunglasses are the Heroes, who save the day and ride off in their Ferraris with the beautiful woman. The guys and gals with the sunglasses are avatars for the Players in the real world.

Free City is also populated with “Non-Player Characters” or NPCs, the meaningless characters that reside in the background game narrative. Ryan Reynolds plays earnest bright-eyed Guy, an NPC. Guy wakes up every morning and greets his pet goldfish Goldie. He eats his breakfast cereal. He wears his uniform blue shirt and works as a bank teller in Free City. In his signature smile, Guy tells customers, “Don’t have a good day. Have a great day.” Per programming, Guy and his best friend irreverent Buddy, played by hysterical Lil Rel Howery, end up face down on the bank floor under the threat of armed bank robbers.

One day, Guy sees stunning Molotov Girl, the avatar for beautiful and resilient Millie, played by Jodie Comer, who’s singing Mariah Carey’s Fantasy. Molotov Girl is the Free City character of Guy’s NPC dreams. Violating programming protocol, Guy says “Hi.” So initiates Guy’s rogue AI (Artificial Intelligence) as he becomes sentient. Uncharacteristically, Guy thwarts the next bank robbery. In the aftermath, he wears the sunglasses of a bank robber. The sunglasses are the gamer’s visor that reveals the virtual world that Guy lives in. An existential crisis arises.

Millie and her software coding partner Keys, played by smart compassionate Joe Keery, had created their video game Free Life, about the ideal world existence. They sold their game concept to Type A arrogant Soonami Games CEO Antoine, played by hysterically funny Taika Waititi. Antoine ripped off Millie’s Artificial Intelligence Engine intellectual property (IP) and leveraged it to create his bestselling Free City. Now, Antoine prepares to release Free City 2.

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Keys remained with Antione as his code developer and helpdesk expert. Millie filed her lawsuit against Antione. She plugs in and plays Free City as avatar Molotov Girl in search of evidence that Antoine stole her IP. Ironically, Millie befriends Guy, who’s evolving as a human, because of her AI engine. In Free City, master gamer Millie has mad iconic video game hero Laura Croft (Tomb Raider) skills, wielding automatic weapons and spinning back kicks. Guy, the NPC falling in love with Molotov Girl, literally raises his game and combat skills to be Millie’s mission partner.

Guy transforms as the Good Guy in Free City. Diverging from game protocol, he takes out the bad guys. His Blue Shirt Guy emerges as the Social Media phenomenon. One young gamer describes Blue Shirt Guy, “He’s so hot.” Well, Ryan Reynolds does play Guy. Yeah, handsome Ryan rocks his hard body under his short-sleeve blue shirt, dishing out signature wisecracks. Yet in Free Guy, Ryan has an endearing self-awareness and vulnerability that moves us. He gives one of his most heartfelt performances.

All that said, given the video gamer and software coding narrative, Free Guy is the funniest and sweetest movie so far this year. Matt Liberman and Zak Penn’s inventive screenplay has the biggest heart. Walking off the Free City program grid, Guy and Millie eat bubble gum ice cream which is both their favorite. Jodie’s Millie poignantly shares with Ryan’s Guy that she had a rough time as a kid growing up, “I wasn’t good enough to be great…” Perhaps, the source of her Free Life game.

Aside from bubble gum ice cream, Millie’s favorite thing on the Planet is playground swings. She searches for the words to describe that feeling when you’re weightless at the top of the swing. Guy gently says, “Free.” Amen.

Amidst the amazing Free City visual effects, the cool expert martial arts action, and A-Lister cameos that include Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Hugh Jackman’s voice renderings, and hilarious Channing Tatum as Avatar, Free Guy is about freedom. The freedom to step out from the background in life, and be loved.

At the touching narrative arc, Guy tells Millie, “You don’t have to live your life in a loop.” We deserve to have our love letter, have our love story. That’s Ryan Reynolds and Shawn Levy just saying. Free Guy is something very special. I’m more than just saying.