You either love Ryan Reynolds’ schtick or you get tired of the fact that every recent character he plays is a riff of his Deadpool personality. Personally I haven’t hit that saturation point yet and I still laugh at his antics. Which is probably why I enjoyed Free Guy as much as I did.

If you breakdown Free Guy, it’s basically the Truman Show mixed with Ready Player One. As the trailers revealed, the movie is set around Guy (Ryan Reynolds) who lives a routine life in Free City. Routine in the sense that he does the same things every day, however it’s not exactly mundane as his day to day is surrounded by constant explosions, robberies, and mayhem. All of which seem perfectly normal to the denizens of Free City because they are all Non-Player Characters (NPCs) in a video game. Their programmed function is just live out their lives going through the same motions while be-spectacled players enter the world and wreck total havoc around them.

This all changes when Guy happens to wear a pair of spectacles stolen from one of the players. The glasses open up a totally new world for him allowing him to see objects and hidden items that he couldn’t before and in doing so make Guy question everything about his existence.

Look, there’s nothing really ground-breaking in Free Guy, but it’s a fun action flick with a bit of heart. Reynolds is as likeable as ever and the rest of the ensemble cast do a good job of supporting him. You are going to be able to easily predict the arc of the story, but you’re having such a good time with all the characters that you probably won’t mind. My favourite line in the film that had me laughing out loud was “He hit me so hard, but his hands are so soft!”.

The VFX do a great job of portraying the game world both within the video game as well as from the perspective of the players from the real world. From the CG representations of the player avatars to the floating pick-ups and items strewn across Free City, the effect really sell the concept of being in a real game.

Free Guy is now playing on Disney+ everywhere outside the US, so give it a go 🙂 7 out of 10