Review of "Free Guy"

For the first time since Gloria died, I watched a movie, and enjoyed it.

(I even watched it in real time.  Most of the time I am using the setting on the DVD to play things a third again faster than normal, because I am annoyed by the waste of time.)

(I doubt that this is a breakthrough, because the rest of the week has been pretty bad.)

Yes, the basic premise (multiple premises, in fact) hark back to the original "Tron," as well as to "Ready Player One."  There are some slight reminders of "Groundhog Day."  There is a reference to "Enchanted"'s "true loves first kiss."  (There are also a number of references to Marvel and Disney owned properties that I wonder the lawyers let slip through.)  But, while I doubt that "Free Guy" will become a cult, or any other kind of, classic, it's got a complex, but ultimately satisfying, love story, and a great deal of heart.

First off, as a Canadian, I really like Ryan Reynolds' standard of a nice guy character.  Unfortunately, it seems to you have to make the nice guy a comedy item to get it sold in the movie market (and, generally, mostly for cheap laughs), but it's still, well, nice.  Then to take that, and use it to take on the whole of gamer culture, is ambitious, to say the least.  However, in the context of the movie, it works, and it makes some interesting points that could use some examination, particularly in our rush to the metaverse.

The idea of building points and status by doing good is passed over failure quickly, as is the "non-consequence" of failures.  Reynolds' character is somewhat inconsistent, at one point seeming to feel actual pain having broken someone's arm, but at another, having terminated a player with extreme prejudice, just saying "He's having a nap."

There's tons of CGI, and very little examination of technical issues.  (The discussion of artificial intelligence is minimal at best, and it is assumed to have "just worked.")  Nobody seems to have heard of information security (although there is a nod to "The Cuckoo's Egg," in that the server stats at one point are off by one player), or backups.  And if a lightsaber is so important, why is it so ineffective?

Lots of things don't work particularly well.  I really like "Play Your Own Kind of Music," but I have no idea why it was chosen as background music for that scene or that part of the movie.  The point to be made comes elsewhere.

It's interesting that a "cheap" sci-fi movie and Mandel's lauded "Sea of Tranquility" novel make the same point.  "A life lived in a simulation is still a life," and "Even if we're not real, this *moment* is real," both say the same thing.

This probably is a movie you have to see multiple times, to appreciate.  There is lots of throw-away content that is just thrown away, but that makes it harder to appreciate, the first time, that "Coffee, cream, two sugars" is not just an odd repeated mantra, but a significant clue to what is going on.

However, overall, I liked it.  It's nice, and it's got heart, and, if you allow yourself to think about it, some depth.