Free Guy (2021)

(Disney Streaming, October 2021) Hollywood hasn’t always known what to do with videogames. (Perhaps one day, we’ll gain perspective on the relationship between the two rivals for their audience’s time, and talk about it in the same way we look at Hollywood’s early efforts to talk about television without dismissing it.)  But that’s changing, as videogaming is firmly into the mainstream, and more filmmakers have experience playing games. Free Guy is interesting in many ways, not the least of them being how it acknowledges the toxicity of online gaming, while still delivering a fundamentally optimistic and upbeat film. A comedy taking a very fanciful look at an online gaming universe that spawns a self-aware non-playing character, Free Guy makes a lot of mileage out of having Ryan Reynolds as its headliner. His irrepressible charisma, combined with his well-established smiling personas, makes him an ideal actor for the role of a character coming to life and changing the virtual world around him. (Taika Waititi also has a featured role as an overbearing tech magnate.)  Crammed with more jokes, references and cameos than I could grasp, Free Guy is a buoyant science-fiction comedy that feels very much of the moment—the merger of Disney with Fox having happened as the film was in production, it’s barely a surprise if the film throws in a few references to the Avengers and Star Wars under the common umbrella of the Mouse. It’s simply a fun film, and that does set it apart (slightly) from a lot of the doom-and-gloom of the moment. I had a surprisingly good time watching it (despite being annoyed at some of the plotting along the way) and Free Guy should appeal even to those without an encyclopedic knowledge of videogames.