One, it looked like it might be a lot of fun. Two, the reviews were fairly good. And three, we needed to make sure this movie really existed.
Free Guy was supposed to be released July 3, 2020.
COVID-19 says no.
Then Free Guy was supposed to be released December 11, 2020.
Nope, still not happening.
How about releasing Free Guy on May 21, 202!?
How about no.
Then Free Guy was supposed to be released August 13, 2021.
I'll believe it when I see it.
OK, I believe it.
So here's the deal: Free City is an open-world video game developed by a smug, smarmy bastard named Antwan with Soonami Games using code stolen from a game called Life Itself developed by Walter "Keys" McKey and Millie Rusk.
Disillusioned and defeated, Keys has gone to work for Soonami. Millie has not given up the fight, spending time in Free City as her avatar Molotov Girl looking for evidence of her stolen code.
But who cares about all that? What's Ryan Reynolds up to in this movie?
Ryan Reynolds is Guy, an NPC who enjoys his life of getting dressed in the same outfit every day (blue shirt, tan slacks), getting his same coffee order every day and working at the bank with his best friend, Buddy the security guard.
But Guy has a lingering feeling of wanting something... more. He wants to meet his dream girl. A girl who is a lot like Molotov Girl.
One day, Guy deviates from his programming and takes the glasses off of a player avatar and for the first time, sees the world of Free City for what it is.
Guy speaks to Millie but Millie thinks Guy is a lame player avatar, not realizing he's an NPC. She tells him to level up to over 100 before she will speak to him again.
Rather than leveling up with the usual destructive acts of most players, Guy levels up doing good deeds; he becomes a worldwide sensation as players watch the progression of "blue shirt Guy".
Millie eventually realizes that Guy is a sentient NPC which is a good indicator that her Life Itself code is buried in this game.
Guy is the result of Keys' artificial intelligence code containing Millie's personal preferences that Keys had included in Life Itself which in turn had led Guy to develop a romantic interest with Millie which reflects Keys' unrequited affection for Millie that Millie is oblivious to because...
Straight people can be so dumb.
Meanwhile, Antwan, chasing more money is looking to launch Free City 2 which will wipe out Free City.
Guy will be gone.
Evidence of the stolen Life Itself code... gone!
Antwan with his eyes on the Free City 2 prize is pissed off at the notoriety of "Blue shirt guy" in the original game.
Antwan has Guy rebooted and he loses his memory of everything he has learned. But Millie's avatar kisses Guy and it restores his memories and his full sentience.
Aww! The power of love, y'all!
Still stuff to do! Antwan orders a not yet complete NPC to be booted up to stop Guy, a muscle bound dolt with Ryan Reynold's face and a muscle builder's body named Dude.
How incomplete is he? His catchphrase is..."Catchphrase!"
It's a desperate break neck rush to save the game as Antwan goes after the servers with an axe.
I won't go into all the details but suffice to say things end well. Antwan is ruined, Millie finally makes the connection that Keys loves her, Free City is now truly free and Guy and Buddy can move their gay attraction from subtext to text.
Hey, I Think I Know That Person
Keys is played by Joe Keery who is Steve Harrington in Stranger Things. In season 3 of Stranger Things, Steve works at the Scoops Ahoy! ice cream parlor. In Free Guy, one of the details Keys knows about Millie is her favorite flavor of ice cream.
Jodie Comer is Millie. And she is the psycho assassin Villanelle in Killing Eve. Villanelle is frequently bouncing between various accents; in Free Guy, Millie has an American accent and Molotov Girl has a British accent.
Hey, I Don't Know That Person
The film features cameo appearances from gamers and streamers Jacksepticeye, Ninja, Pokimane, DanTDM, and LazarBeam.
Went over my head but my daughter Randie knows 'em.
Hey, I Think I Know That Voice
Channing Tatum has a cameo as the in-game avatar of a player Keith. In the background in Keith's home can be heard the voice of Tina Fey as his vacuuming mom.
Hugh Jackman voices a masked avatar in an alley.
Dwayne Johnson's voice is on hand as a bank robber.
In other cameo news:
Alex Trebek make a posthumous appearance when "Who is Blue Shirt Guy? is a question on Jeopardy!
In his fight with Dude, Guy makes use of a familiar shield which prompts a funny as hell cameo from Chris Evans.
Free Guy is funny, exciting and unexpectedly sweet and thought provoking.
It took over a year to get here but Free Guy was worth the wait.
________________________
Blog Bidness: this is the last Movie Monday post. The plan was to post about new movies here and older movies under Cinema Sunday.
Which was more work than it was worth and too confusing even for me to keep track of and it was my idea.
From here on out, any new movies I see will be written about under the Cinema Sunday heading along with the older movies.
No comments:
Post a Comment