What's up everyone? Matthew here once again with another entry to The Blue Review. Last time, I had the pleasure of talking about Venom and Let There Be Carnage. Both of those were a lot of fun. Since then, it's been a while since I watched anything not horror related.
Today, I took it upon myself to just jump the gun and dive into another film. Now the title of this will give it away what film I'll be talking about. But just take a moment to think on things. It's a movie about a man realizing that there's more to life. The possibilities are endless on what he can do. He has so much in front of him. All of it happened because he met a girl. Now his world is endangered and so he must do what he can to save it all. Does that sound like The Lego Movie? How about Ready Player One? By this point, it takes a little bit to give this film a distinct voice. I'm talking about Free Guy.
Free Guy is one of the latest new Ryan Reynolds films released this year. It was one that I had actually been looking forward to for a time. I had first heard about it back in 2019 because Jacksepticeye had mentioned it. When I had heard the initial sypnosis for it, I immediately thought Oh, Lego Movie and Ready Player One. What's this going to do to differentiate it from those? Well, the trailers for the film paint it solely as being closer to those films.
However, this film has a lot of heart to it. Ryan Reynolds delivers a fantastic performance as Guy, the Blue Shirt NPC Bank Teller that is tired with his life. He can play naive really really well and make it very amusing. While the jokes seem to fly a bit, its the more earnest moments with him that are so awesome. He just plays those moments with Guy having his heart on his sleeve. There comes a moment though where Guy has to question everything. While its nice seeing Ryan actually conveying everything with his comedic timing ("They don't have thumbs, Phyllis."), its just the performance going on behind it that was even more powerful to me. The super subtle stuff.
While this was led by Reynolds, Joe Keery, Jodie Comer, Lil Rey Howery, and Utkarsh Ambudkar all bring their A-game to this ensemble. The friendship between Lil Rey Howery's Buddy and Guy is just so good. They are the absolute bestest of friends that have one another's back. Joe Keery does a solid job, though there is a slight romantic interest with Comer that felt a bit overplayed. I mean it felt completely obvious that he is head over heels for Millie. But then it took the time and she finally realized it. It felt like a moment that was unnecessary. Jodie Comer does a great job as well.
Now what's an entertaining movie without its villain. Free Guy does have a fun villain in Taika Waititi. He is so over the top playing a software yuppy. He is all about the numbers on the products. He doesn't care whatsoever about the product. It's a very honest portrayal. I mean look over at Gearbox's Randy Pitchford and look at the Aliens: Colonial Marines mishandling that happened. It felt very much like Taika's Antwan. But Taika is clearly having a lot of fun with the cheese in the film and bouncing off of Keery and Ambudkar. The one thing that I was very surprised is that the film didn't find a way of having Taika playing the game to fight Guy. Instead the way that he handles it, it's very much more a realistic approach than what the film trailers would lead you to believe.
There are a few action sequences. A lot of them are pretty solid. However in the overall film, the action is a lot less than the character interactions. It's honestly the smartest way to approach the film. There are also a lot of Youtuber/Twitch streamer cameos. Never once did they feel like it was overkill. Everything was all pretty balanced.
In the end, Free Guy was a lot of fun. It was a little less action than I expected it to be. But it's okay. It's a fun ride and something that can be watched with the whole family. There's definitely a lot going on in the backgrounds. I look forward to my next watch to see if there's anything else that I notice that I didn't the first time. I recommend it.
Rating: 4 out of 5.
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