The pandemic may have permanently upended the movie business, but leave it to Free Guy to show that there are still some reliable elements of this industry. Specifically, once again, director Shawn Levy has helmed a movie that just resonates with people. Night at the Museum, Date Night, Real Steel, Cheaper by the Dozen, his box office track record is pretty stellar at this point. Also returning from his prior movies is that Free Guy is harmless to watch but easy to forget. Nearly two decades since his directorial debut Big Fat Liar, Levy just hasn't grown that much as a filmmaker. That lack of ambition is what keeps Free Guy firmly in the decent but disposable camp.
Free Guy chronicles Guy (Ryan Reynolds), a non-playable character in a video game. Guy is unaware that he's in a game, though, he's just happy to live his life in Free City. Here, he always gets the same coffee while the streets are always running with avatars inhabited by real-world gamers causing endless carnage. However, once Guy gets immediately smitten by a player known as Molotov Girl (Jodie Comer), he begins to bend the rules a bit. This is helped by him procuring a pair of glasses that let him see Free City as a game, one where he can accomplish tasks to "level up" and get skilled enough that he can hang out with Molotov Girl.
In the real world, Molotov Girl is Millie Rusk, who previously developed an open-world game with her former creative partner Walter (Joe Keery). The game got bought out by wealthy video game developer Antwan (Taika Waititi) and was then shelved, shattering their dreams. But as Guy begins to take on more and more of a life of his own, well, it seems anything is possible. Including Millie and Walter striking back at Antwan and maybe, just maybe, Guy becoming the hero.
I've seen lots of comparisons online about Free Guy being similar to The Truman Show but what it really reminded me of was Pleasantville. How could it not with this story of an everyday fellow living in a morally black-and-white world whose whole world begins to open up as he pushes against the norms of the medium he inhabits? There's even a resident of Free City who serves beverages to everyone who eventually discovers the joys of making whatever they want! There's nothing wrong with evoking other movies, but Free Guy's biggest problem is that screenwriters Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn are just too reliant on familiar elements.
This problem extends to predictable plot turns, including a strangely superfluous second-act detour that takes way too many cues from the conclusion of WALL-E, and familiar needle drops (Miley Cyrus's Wrecking Ball especially gets employed in a bafflingly obvious moment). Worst of all, Free Guy can never outrun the ominous shadow that this is a Disney movie that tries to paint stereotypical protaganists as somehow being "subversive". A big corporation repackaging white people who look, in body type and sexual proclivities, like 99% of other Hollywood leads as somehow being emblematic of standing up against norms of society never stops being peculiar. Free Guy is about following your own spirit, but in many ways, the movie just feels familiar.
Thankfully, Free Guy isn't just predictable needle drops and unintentionally creepy subtext. It's also got its good qualities, including its welcome lack of pretense towards being "hip." This is a movie that wears its emotions right on its sleeve, right down to one of the final scenes being a rainy reunion between two prospective lovers. This adherence to classical traits explains why so much of Free Guy feels familiar, but it does make the proceedings easy to watch. The movie isn't interested in seeming too cool for school. Its best moments are instead all about conveying a genuine affection for just helping other people without a self-referential quip to undercut that hospitality.
Plus, Levy and company keep the proceedings running under two hours in runtime and always moving. I have my gripes with Free Guy, but its pacing isn't one of them, there's always some piece of comedy or cogently realized action scene to keep your attention. I wish Free Guy's obvious desire to just please audiences went in more unexpected directions, but at least that desire results in a movie that kept me engaged more often than it didn't. As for the laughs, my favorite gags are either the subtle details in the background (like one guy just getting caught in a glitch when running up a wall) or dark gags, such as an extended bit involving an NPC whose on fire.
Nobody in Free Guy is reinventing the wheel, including Ryan Reynolds himself who has a bad habit of lapsing into Deadpool-lite at several intervals in the story. That lack of total innovation wouldn't be a problem except Levy's latest directorial effort too often feels paint-by-numbers rather than exciting rehashing familiar narratives. Given both the box office success and extremely positive reception from the people at my screening, Free Guy is clearly working for people and there's enough here that does go right (including a winning turn from Jodie Comer) to suggest why this is another Shawn Levy box office hit. For me, I just wish this was one game that was more willing to level up to unexpected places, or at least repackage the familiar in more enticing packaging.
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