Free Guy (2021)

Plot of Free Guy: Guy is an NCP, non playing character, in a video game who is seen working in a bank which is robbed by playing characters. Unexpectedly Guy begins to deviate from his script, shooting one of the bank robbers and gaining possession of their sunglasses which, when he puts them on, gives him a different view of the environment. Out in the real world, Millie, a software developer enters the game as Molotov Girl. She thinks that the developers of Free City, Soonami, have stolen her code which uses AI to give characters life. She also thinks that Guy is a hacker and helps him progress through the game so that he becomes a world wide sensation, being known as Blue Shirt Guy. Guy is attracted to Mille, as Molotov Girl and helps her in her efforts to find her source code which has been stolen by the developers of Free City. However, Antwan, the boss of Soonami intends to replace Free City with Free City 2 which will erase Guy from the game, so he and Millie are up against it in their efforts to right the wrongs.

Content: No sex or nudity and just a bit of drinking. There is a lot of violence played lightly since it is a video game. In the world we see players manipulating their characters in the game and discussions in the offices of Soonami.  Guy is attracted to Molotov Girl which possibly causes him to break his code and shoot a bank robber, then puts on the bank robber’s glasses, and sees the overlay of the game. Back in the Soonami office they think he is a hacker and two of the coders enter the game to eliminate him, resulting in a lot of chasing about and gunfire. Millie, in the game tells Guy to get to a higher level, so he begins to carry out the tasks, gaining a following out in the world. Once he starts to help Millie they go to a variety of locations in their efforts to find her code allowing for the inclusion of some pretty wild environments including one full of motor cycles. They escape on a motor bike, carrying out spectacular shoot outs.

A View: This outing seems to have made a lot of money, resulting in plans for a sequel, which has not appeared yet. I found it to be a lot of fun, but I am unfamiliar with modern computer games so did not have anything to be irritated about. I thought Molotov Girl’s clothing was a bit weird, what were they getting at I thought. The whole business of being in the game, or not, is very well presented and Ryan Reynolds is great. The story did not end quite as I would have liked but even so, well worth a watch if you like that sort of thing.

Fun Fact: From the IMDb trivia: The fact that the players need to use glasses to see Free City as opposed to the NPCs is a visual metaphor for the game’s own existence. That it is a game added on top of an existing concept, an extra layer of simulation inside of a simulation. Blimey!