Free Advice

Most of the world -- or, at least, the internet -- is completely charmed by actor Ryan Reynolds. You can include me in that too, as I've seen my share of subpar movies over the years just because Reynolds is always enjoyable, independent of the quality of the film. With Free Guy, I didn't really need to be coaxed into watching: the story of a video game NPC who yearns for more in his cyberlife sounded fun on paper, with the casting just icing on the cake. Still, my interest was at a modest level, a "stream this later" kind of curiosity. And now, "later" has come to Disney+.

It's probably no great surprise that the two aspects that put Free Guy on my radar in the first place -- a clever premise and Ryan Reynolds -- were easily the two best things about the movie. It is a solid movie, and entertaining, but it also illuminates the difference between "smart" and "clever." A "smart" movie would probably give you more than you expect, maybe keep you guessing, or serve up an ending that satisfied on both an emotional an intellectual level. Free Guy doesn't really do any of that.

But it sure is "clever." Every joke about massively multiplayer games that you could think of (and plenty you couldn't) are in here. The story itself is built on the delightfully "meta" premise that Ryan Reynolds' NPC character isn't actually even the main character in what should be his own story. There's a solid cast, a playful use of visual effects, and any fat is trimmed away to keep this light story under two hours.

Still, the "try anything and see what sticks" attitude doesn't always serve the movie well. Some of the "real world" characters -- chiefly Taika Waititi's broad villain -- are as exaggerated and cartoonish as anything in the "game world," which I think undermines a lot of what makes the premise fun here. A fair amount of humor is "made for freeze framing," and while I resisted the urge to go joke-hunting that way, the fact that the background so regularly draws your focus kept me at times from fully engaging in the story.

However, the movie does basically give you exactly what it promises. The jokes are pretty funny. And (though you knew this) Ryan Reynolds is charming. So while Free Guy didn't exactly blow me away, I can't claim I was actually "disappointed" by it in any way. I'd give it a B. Maybe you, like me, didn't get around to it in a movie theater. If you haven't caught it yet, but it sounded at all interesting to you, it's probably worth your time.