Thanks to our inability to do much outside of our homes this year, we’ve probably all engaged in video games more than normal (if that were even possible for many of you). Though given the wild ups and downs we’ve had this year, you would also be forgiven for thinking you were living in a video game. Which would arguably be more preferable even if it featured the possibility of death every twenty seconds. Or ten if I’m playing it.
Ryan Reynolds’ upcoming movie, Free Guy, features a similar sort of setup where he plays a background character in a big MMO game that wants to try and take control of his own fate rather than follow the rest of the video game script. Plus he falls for an actual player’s avatar. It’s not just an interesting premise for many gamers though, but combined with Reynolds’ humour and director Shawn Levy’s blend of action/comedy spectacle, it looks like it could be a fun movie based on the evidence we got from its first trailer. And now we have a second trailer which just goes to confirm the fun that is in store from the film.
That certainly looks like a wild ride. I genuinely love the premise and how it portrays the world of gaming, even if there should really be more microtransactions and paywalls behind everything. Featuring some great humour, a charismatic Reynolds, and some pretty outrageous action sequences, this should be a fun movie even if it hits a lot of cliches along the way.
The film may be set in a video game, but according to Shawn Levy in a /Film interview, the movie is intended to have a very human message behind it that can relate to gamers and non-gamers alike:
It’s like all of us have felt stuck in a loop, and all of us have felt like a background character in someone else’s story. And this idea of, like, stop living in the background, or notice the person in the background. Empathize with the person in the background. That’s a big part of the themes that play in this movie, and while they’re called NPCs, non-player characters and it’s set in a video game, the movie is really not about video games as much as it is about being a person in the world and how you choose to live.
Free Guy was supposed to be released already, but much like everything in 2020, it had its release date shifted and is now coming out this December. Or possibly not. To cater for the fact that the film could be delayed many times over, Reynolds posted a brief video along with the rest of the film’s cast (Jodie Comer, Joe Keery, Lil Rel Howery, Utkarsh Ambudkar, and Taika Waititi), as well as Levy where they joke about the fact that the film could release even in the distant future and try and cater for every possibility
Last Updated: October 6, 2020
BradeLunner
October 6, 2020 at 12:34
Man you can play The Who over anything to make it look even more epic
Original Heretic
October 6, 2020 at 12:42
This looks like a crapload of fun.
Definitely must watch.
Iskape
October 6, 2020 at 12:43
Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. Reynolds does such a good job with fun actions movies – I mean look at Deadpool!
For the Emperor!
October 6, 2020 at 13:21
This looks fun! Laughing at the trailer ?
Insomnia is fun
October 7, 2020 at 07:24
Looks awesome
BlinkFan
October 7, 2020 at 08:59
Spent the whole trailer thinking – “wow Rachael Leigh Cook is making a comeback!”. But only then saw it’s Jodie Comer