Review: Free Guy Movie Review

Ryan Reynolds stars in his new movie Free Guy. Reynolds directed, cast, and played a major role in the movie. In the movie, a Non Playable Character (NPC) discovers he is an Artificial Intelligence, or AI, inside of the Mass multiplayer online (MMO) game Free City. Reynold’s character develops his own thoughts and feelings, leading to his character discovering that the world he has lived in his entire life is purely a video game. Reynold’s character is named Guy. Guy works at the bank as a teller with his best friend Buddy, who is a security guard.
            The story starts off with Guy and Buddy heading to work. Guy talks about how he has never had a woman in his life to love him. He then spots a woman who is a player in the game. The NPCs know they are not supposed to interfere with those who wear sunglasses; they are known as “heroes” to the NPCs. They are not “heroes” but rather, they are players in the game. Guy falls in love with this player, making his goal to obtain sunglasses that same day.
            With Guy being a bank teller, there are always heists that happen at the bank. These heists are missions for the players to gain experience. Guy decides to attack one of the players and steal his sunglasses. Once he has the sunglasses, he immediately goes outside and puts them on. This is where the revelation happens. He realizes that he has been seeing his world completely differently than how the players see the world. Guy finds the player he is in love with and that her name is Millie.
            Flipping to the real world, Millie has a lawsuit for the company, Soonami Games, that copied her and her friend Walter’s code to use for Free City. The character she uses in the game is only to find evidence that the code still exists. Walter works for Soonami Games, the company alleged to have stolen the code. Millie makes it her goal to find footage that shows their original map of the game is on the same map as Free City.
            Soonami Games’ employees notice a strange occurrence on the server; what they think is either a bug or a hacker. Two coders aim to take him out but fail to do so and he gets away easily. Guy later learns from Millie that he must level up in order to gain access to certain items and areas. He decides that he wants to be the “Good Guy” in the game; he saves cats, stops robberies, and helps other NPCs. Guy gets noticed by many players including popular YouTube streamers Jacksepticeye and Ninja. Once Guy gains his popularity, the owners decide taking him out would be a bad relations move. They keep Guy in the game to keep the public happy. The world suddenly loves Guy.
            Millie and Walter kept looking in Free City for the evidence needed to pursue their lawsuit while the public was happy with Guy. They used this publicity as a distraction. Soon, they realized the proof they needed was Guy himself. The code they created together was made to start an AI out with normal NPC actions and behaviors. This AI would soon learn and grow as time went on, almost becoming “human” to an extent. Given that their exact code for the AI was still active, the only item left to check off would be to find their map outside of Free City.
            In the real world, Fans of Free City all over the world were so impressed by Guy that they began to advocate for the rights to NPCs; they should not be killed; they should be allowed to roam the map; et cetera. This uproar for creating rights for NPCs starts to bring bad press to the company that owns Free City. Because of the bad press, they decide to take Guy out if it is the last edit they will ever make. Free City was getting a sequel, Free City 2, which would destroy all evidence for the lawsuit. Millie and Walter did not have much time left to secure the evidence.
            Walter begins to edit code for the game in secret, making it harder to take Guy out of the game. Free City has an invisible barrier protecting players from going into the sea. This barrier was actually to protect the original map of the game they created together. The CEO of Soonami did not want the couple to know that their game was stolen. He asks his coders to release the character he had built to replace Guy in Free City 2; his name was Dude. Walter figured a way around the barrier by taking one of the skyscraper buildings and coding it to fall into the ocean. Before Guy gets too far, a bigger and more toned version of Guy is dropped in; the fight between Dude and Guy begins. 
            Dude was not a finished product or even close to being ready for launch. This made his character lack many aspects of an NPC, which includes fighting and phrases. Guy uses his sunglasses to spawn weapons and items from the Marvel Universe to subdue Dude. (Apparently, Free Guy takes place within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Who knew?)  Guy wins the fight and begins to run across the makeshift bridge to the original map. As he begins to run, the bridge begins to collapse as the code for the building is being deleted.
            The CEO takes an axe to the servers for Free City, destroying each server he passes. Once Guy reaches the original map, Millie meets the CEO at the server room. All but one server is destroyed: the server with her map, code and Guy on it. The CEO had no idea they had already discovered their map was there. He drops the axe and begins to run.
            Millie and Walter sue Soonami Games and win the rights to their game back. They keep Free City around but change the name of it. Guy and all the NPCs from Free City are kept in the game.
            This movie was written very well especially for video game nuts like me. If you love video games, this is the film for you. The game Free City itself gives off vibes of Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption and any of your typical online MMOs. The camera work was amazing and the directors did not leave out any details for this film. The film is hilarious if you understand typical gamer vernacular. Having the YouTubers and Twitch Streamers in the movie added the aspect of how popular the game was if it were a real game.
            Go see this film in theaters while available. It is worth the time.