Director; Shawn Levy. Starring; Ryan Reynolds, Taka Waititi, Jodie Corner. Rated PG-13. Color. 115 Minutes.
“Free Guy” is a movie that I am not against holistically. This is one of those cinematic experiences where 7 out of 10 highlighted moments are not good. More often than not, they came up short. To metaphorically sum up “Free Guy”, picture a movie orgy involving “The Matrix”, “Office Space”, “Groundhog Day”, and “Deadpool” combined minus most of the good stuff. Talk about wasted talent movie-making on full display.
Star Ryan Reynolds plays a bank teller known as ‘Guy’. He is a boring cog in a new interactive video game. This fake character is tired of being the one in the game that is constantly dying over and over again. One virtual day he runs into a stealthy assassin named Millie (Jodie Comer) during a series of multiple explosions in the interactive big city. Millie is actually a creation in this open world video game similar to say “Grand Theft Auto Online”, by one of the game’s engineers.
That is when reality comes in with this story. The head game creator Antoine (Taika Waititi) is an insane CEO of this video game world that will “Change the Minds of the Gamers”. It is just a video game that becomes popular and somehow ‘Guy’ becomes cognizant. Basically “The Truman Show” for the millennial generation.
Look, “Free Guy” has some laughs. The monumental amount of pop culture references have a few gems, in particular a “Star Wars” lightsaber showing up during a battle being hilarious. But that is the problem with “Free Guy”. All it contains is pop culture references. No substance. The opposite of “Deadpool” Mr. Ryan Reynolds. I am sure hard core Comic-Con fans who play “Fortnite” hours on end will find plenty to love here. No issue with ya’ll. My issue is that “Free Guy” is so obsessed with moments that it never becomes a full movie with a plot worthy of actually rooting for the characters in your heart of hearts.
Suck Factor: 5 out of 7 (7 Means Your Movie Really SUCKS!)
The SUCK FACTOR! How it works. We have flipped the script on standard movie reviews. If you make a classic such as “The Godfather” your movie gets a perfect 0 SUCKS! If you produce absolute stupidity, say anything Michael Bay does, then you get a perfect 7 out of 7, meaning your movie truly SUCKS!
Greg Squared Films 