Free Guy movie review: Ryan Reynolds heads frenetic sci-fi action comedy as a nobody in a video game who finds a sense of purpose

3.5/5 stars

Frenetic, frivolous and fitfully entertaining, sci-fi action comedy Free Guy stars Ryan Reynolds as a mild-mannered bank teller who discovers he is really just an innocuous background character in an ultra-violent open-world video game.

This realisation motivates him to push back against the powerful player avatars that terrorise his hometown, and help a pair of real-world developers save their game from a megalomaniacal tycoon.

Following the huge success of Killing Eve, British actress Jodie Comer lands her first major Hollywood role as Millie, the disgruntled designer who suspects Free City creator and Soonami CEO Antwan (Taika Waititi) of stealing her concept.

Scouring the game world for clues in the guise of beautiful biker chick Molotov Girl, Millie inadvertently captures the attention of Guy (Reynolds). Instantly love-struck, he sets out to find her, and begins to question his true purpose and everything around him.

Millie’s former partner Keys (Joe Keery) now works at Soonami, and is initially reluctant to challenge his boss. As Guy’s off-book antics as “Blue Shirt Guy” garner real-world attention and threaten the imminent launch of Antwan’s sequel, Keys and fellow coder Mouser (Utkarsh Ambudkar) are sent into the game to hunt him down. An entire other movie could be fashioned around their goofy city police officer avatars, not least Mouser’s self-proclaimed “apex predator” rabbit man.

Director Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum, Real Steel) stacks the film, which is equal parts Grand Theft Auto and The Truman Show, with in-jokes and Easter eggs that are sure to delight geek culture nerds, while delivering enough flashy action thrills and gleefully silly humour to appease those less attuned to the gaming world.

Free Guy also takes potshots at corporate greed, gun culture and the perils of anonymous interactive gameplay, while raising questions about identity, ownership and the legitimacy of our expanding digital world. But any meaningful commentary is overshadowed by the desire to blow stuff up and wring every last possible laugh from Reynolds’ naive, self-effacing hero.

Indeed, the film requires so much world-building that it takes a good half-hour to really find its feet. But, unlike many high-concept blockbusters, Free Guy actually improves as it unfolds.

Sustained through its bugs and glitches by the infectious charms of Reynolds, who has found in Guy his best role since Deadpool, it builds to a riotously entertaining third act and boasts some of the most memorable cameo appearances in recent memory.

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