Video game movies have a reputation of sucking harder than a super charged vacuum cleaner, but things have been getting better in recent years. Even though the Sonic and the Detective Pikachu movies aren’t going to win any Oscars they were fun enough to watch, especially as movies primarily aimed at kids and adults who refuse to grow up (myself included).
But no other movie can be said to be a video game movie while not based of off a video game as Free guy. And you know what; this might be a good work around.
Free guy is able to translate a lot of the fun aspects of video game culture without depending on any existing intellectual property, hence avoiding the inevitable outrage from the ‘Fans’ on how Kratos’s left nipple was a different colour or some bullshit like that.
Free guy seemed to have garnered a lot of initial hype with its trailers and because Ryan Reynolds (the most charming humanoid on the planet) was in it. but once it released there wasn’t much of a talk about it after. That’s not because it’s a bad movie, it actually is a fun little romp with enough jokes and heart to keep you watching. But what it is a bit forgettable, and after you’re done watching it there’s not much else to say about it.
But I’m gonna try any way.
The Plot
Free guy take’s place inside the game world of Free City which is a GTA clone if I ever saw one, and follows the life of Guy an NPC(non-playable character) who has a fixed routine as a bank worker. He goes his day in the exact same loop, with a belief that one day he’ll do something different but inevitably not making any real changes to make this dream a reality.
Now, I love this. I found this underlying theme of being stuck in a repeating cycle to be done well without being too on the nose, and more importantly not too preachy. It’s always nice when serious themes can be seen underneath a story that can be enjoyed by kids (See any Pixar movie for more examples). And it did help that this might be a rut in which many millennials and zoomers find themselves in today.
But Guy’s life changes when he runs into Millie a.k.a. Molotov Girl, a high level player character in search of a secret level. On seeing her, he starts wishing for more. He then accidently kills a player character and takes his sunglasses. Now sunglasses in this world is what act’s as a point of access and a user interface for the playable characters so when Guy puts it on, he all of a sudden has access to everything a player has and is able to see the game world for what it really is, horrible user interface and all.
Also unless you’re that good looking you cannot pull off these shades
Spoilers Ahead!
He then tracks down Millie like the 4 year old lovesick puppy(which he technically is) who mistakes him for a player character and ask him to get on his level(but in a nice way). But this being a video game she is of course talking about literal levels and the arbitrary level of 100 is decided on.
In the real world it is revealed that Millie is a programmer trying to sue the company that made ‘Free city’ for illegally using an AI code she and her partner ‘Keys’ made in their game, and using movie logic she can only find proof of this by playing the game.
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