Movie Thoughts: Free Guy (2021)

• Released: 13 August 2021
• Directed by: Shawn Levy
• Running time: 1 h 55 min
• Rating 3.5/5

Synopsis

An NPC in a game starts to go rogue and bonds with a player who is dead-set on proving that assets within the game were stolen from her and her partner.

My Thoughts

Not a movie I was intending to see, haha. Not because it didn't appeal to me, just because I genuinely don't feel like visiting the theater right now with the 1.5 meter and mask rules lifted. But luckily it turned out that this one was actually on Disney+, which I have, so good for me, I don't have to risk exposing myself to people who could carry Covid. 

The movie overall wasn't a massive hit for me, but I definitely quite liked it. It had its serious moments, but I mostly just liked the comedy aspects of it, and also the unique idea of a game NPC actually developing artificial intelligence and now having to deal with the fact that his game might be deleted forever (taking him and all the other NPCs down with it). 

The conflict with the evil game-developer guy wasn't all that interesting to me and I honestly just preferred the time we spent in the world with Guy, but it was neat to see a connection to the real-life events as they were going on. I just didn't think the main villain was particularly interesting, he's just a capitalist who cares only for money. 

So while this wasn't really my personal taste, I nonetheless enjoyed it and had a good time. I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it, but if it sounds appealing to you it's probably worth a watch. I honestly feel like people who have more experience with gaming might get more out of it. I'm not much of a gamer at all, playing only casual at most, but not all of the terminology and things going on here were lost on me.