VGFlicks: Free Guy (Part 4)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4

Guy VS Dude

God damn, that section title alone is making me crack up.

The bridge is built, all the player characters are gone, and Guy will be free to cross the water towards the island of Life Itself. Keys, on his way out of Soonami, activates a program on his laptop that activates livestreaming to every screen that was playing Free City. The whole world will be watching this climax.

Dude, (I can call him that, that's literally his name),
your face doesn't fit your body.

The world, including the game's biggest streamers, are
watching the Reynolds VS Reynolds battle.

Meanwhile, Dude’s upload has completed. He is introduced punching Guy in the face. Dude was the work of Antwan, when he was remaking Blue Shirt Guy so Free City 2 could capitalize on the bank teller’s sudden popularity. The end result is, of course, not Guy at all. A buff bodybuilder (the body of Aaron W. Reed) with a blue shirt tattoo on the left pec, blond hair, and Guy’s face shoved where a face should be. Like a deepfake that doesn’t quite convince. And it looks like Antwan put all his efforts into the looks, because Dude is a complete dummy. His catchphrase is “Catchphrase!” and his speech lines are incomplete. He’s ridiculous and scary at the same time. In short, he fits right in within a movie that stars Ryan Reynolds.

We see plenty of scenes from the game itself. Especially
as the climax is livestreamed to the world. We are, however,
never explained how the game, with nobody playing it, has
camera angles that change so the world can watch properly.

A quick thing I haven’t mentioned yet: Not only are we getting the live-action movie, but anytime we’re watching through a real-life player’s screen, we ARE seeing the same events in CGI, with the same level of detail as we’ve gotten accustomed to with stuff like GTA or Fortnite – these scenes had to be animated too! It’s one of the things we don’t quite think about when watching it, because in the story, these scenes are from a video game – but there had to be a TON of work to make all the players and NPCs look exactly like they do when the inside of the game is shown to us in live-action.

Dude punches Guy away, causing our hero to lose his glasses. However, Buddy comes by to help Guy! But Buddy is suddenly very interested in Dude. And starts playing with the Dude’s pecs, causing the latter to punch Buddy to the ground. He falls next to Guy, and then Dude picks him up again to toss him away, before giving his doppelganger Guy a beating. …Yes, I am using these characters’ silly basic names repeatedly on purpose.

I try to imagine Shawn Levy directing this bit. "Okay Aaron,
you gotta let Lil Rey Howery play with your pecs while he
acts like he has never seen anything like them. For an
uncomfortable twenty seconds. 3... 2..."

Hulk Arm VS Captain America's Shield. Sure, why not.

A key element is that Free City contains tons of nods to other franchises and video games. The hidden signification is that Antwan is incapable of creating something himself, so he takes whatever he can and shoves those things in his games. Who cares if they don’t fit. However, we are never told why all these things are still allowed to appear in the game; is Soonami striking deals with other studios and franchise owners to get the rights to add these things in? I mean, what’s next, a game that has characters from literally everything out there, like KPop Demon Hunters, Regular Show, The Office, Adventure Time, South Park, Harry Potter (AGAIN!!), Danny Phantom, The Simpsons, Scooby-Doo, Gorillaz- I’mma stop the joke there, we all know I’m talking about Fortnite by now. In hindsight, the numerous additions to Fortnite feel like they were predicted by Free Guy and the number of video game references that make their way into the film. Earlier, Guy is seen using a Mega Buster from Mega Man.

VGFlicks: Free Guy (Part 3)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4

I’m Not Real??

And he is being told this in the one place where he can see
all the ways in which players are rewarded for mistreating
him. Ouch.

Millie goes to tell Guy everything. She takes him to the multiplayer lounge, which he couldn’t access previously, to explain the artificial nature of this world – and of Guy himself. As an NPC, he’s little more than setpiece decoration, and players are encouraged to mistreat him whenever they can. The weight of the revelation leaves him heartbroken and crushed, and he leaves even after Millie explains about the imminent shutdown of his world.

I guess swimming in that ocean is out of the question, huh.

Not fair! I wanted him to make me laugh, not cry!

Seeking further confirmation, Guy heads off to the beach. He tosses a rock at the ocean and sees it disappears into the out-of-bounds barrier. Failing to get through to any other NPCs, Guy goes to Buddy’s place for a chat. The security guard doesn’t quite grasp the part about not being real, but he says that this moment, where he helps out a friend in a funk, that’s real no matter the circumstances around it. Buddy might be one of the silliest characters, but he’s got all the best moments of emotion in the film.

It is hilarious to me that in this movie, Ryan Reynolds plays
someone who doesn't (or barely) grasp the concept of a
fourth wall.

This helps Guy a lot, and so he enlists Buddy’s help. They sneak into the player safehouse, and get in easily because Buddy is friends with all the security guard NPCs in town. The safehouse’s owner arrives, and Buddy threatens him with his work firearm. The player character, portrayed by Channing Tatum, is ecstatic at meeting Blue Shirt Guy. Tatum is RevenjaminButton, the player followed during the Oners in the intro, and has this lengthy scene as well, so his role is greater than a cameo. The character is played by a streamer who speaks monotonously; the character is more animated than him. Guy easily gets his video just by asking nicely; though he does mention Millie's name in the discussion. The streamer tries to ask for things in return, like having Guy say his stream catchphrase. Or, uh, other awkward stuff.

VGFlicks: Free Guy (Part 2)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4

Life Itself

Maybe IGN should focus on the game and the development
work instead of inquiring about the relationship status
of the devs.

We get Keys’ backstory with Millie Rusk. Together, they had created the video game Life Itself, which would contain revolutionary AI for its characters – they would learn from each other, grow like people, and branch out to the point where watching them would be almost like watching real humans. Things went awry when they looked for a publisher through which they could sell this “fishbowl game” (a term I have not seen anywhere else, by the way). Soonami Studios took it, but shelved it, claiming it didn’t do well with test audiences. And during interviews about their “revolutionary game”, journalists would pivot to asking whether the two are a couple, which would embarrass them.

This info is given through an old interview airing on Keys’ TV, which was on when he came home. Millie broke in to talk to him. He claims he can’t listen to nor look at her without violating his NDA; but she says that she might be close to finding evidence that their code was stolen by Soonami and used in Free City. She wants him to help, but he needs his job, so he declines.

The shadow of Antwan, Keys' boss and the CEO of Soonami
Studios, looms all over this discussion, and we won't see
him for another 10 more minutes!

Looks beautiful, but what do I do with it aside from watching?

Okay, the concept of a “fishbowl game”. This is one of the small things that kind of bugs me with the idea behind the movie, since so much of the plot hinges on that invented concept. A video game that you can’t interact with sounds… well, I’m gonna be a jerk and agree with Soonami there. If I pick up a video game, it’s to play it. Right? Technically, if it’s just observational, does it even qualify as a game? Because the more I think about it, the more I think that an idea like this would have just needed some tweaks. Some way in which players could impact the NPCs positively. Admittedly, maybe Keys and Millie didn’t have the resources to make something that players could genuinely interact with, using avatars and controls and whatnot; but, had Soonami not decided to go behind their backs, maybe the studio could have whipped up something different.

VGflicks: Free Guy (Part 1)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4

Moving on to the final VGFlicks review this year, and it’s another big one. I still remember the summer of 2021. The pandemic was still bad, but cinemas had reopened, figuring they could have representations if moviegoers wore masks and practiced safe distancing. Sad times. But! I do remember going to the theater for a few films that summer. One was Space Jam: A New Legacy (reviewed these past two weeks) and another was this one.

Sunglasses are back in style.

We video game fans have been dining well since the early 2010s when it comes to movies about video games, be they adaptations or original stories with the medium as centerstage. It’s not that there weren’t good video game movies before, but they became far more common afterwards. I covered a lot of movies about video games, both good and bad, so I did witness that shift.

Anyway, without playing my hand too early, I guess I could say that Free Guy is one fine example of a movie that really understands the medium of video games and everything around them, all while hiding a science-fiction plot under the guise of a comedy. And with one of Hollywood’s most famous quippers, too. For what it’s worth, I knew this movie was going to do things right just by seeing its advertising – so many posters parodying famous video game franchises, and mimicking quite faithfully the look of those franchises (or their box arts, at least). Seriously – look at these!

Free Guy was directed by Shawn Levy (who would go on to make more movies with Ryan Reynolds), and was filmed in 2019 – though it wasn’t released to theaters until August 13th, 2021. As someone whose first language wasn’t English, let me start with a little observation: This movie’s title is untranslatable. It works on like three levels, but any translations will only be able to go for one of them. Explaining this would spoil things ahead of time, so why not just look at the plot?

Welcome to Free City

See? Super-cool. Totally justified, not psychopathic at all.

The film opens on narration by our protagonist, who presents Free City: An incredible place to live, where “anything is possible”. In this city, those who wear sunglasses are badass heroes and have access to anything they want; they can parachute, they can use gliders, they can get any girl they want, they can steal cars, they can rob banks, they can kill random people. True heroes! …wait, what? Amazing idea, by the way, to present this all within the first shots of the film, two oners that show and tell so much about the setting in such short time.

VGFlicks: Space Jam: A New Legacy (Part 4)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4

Completely Looney

That's really the best silly face you could make, LeBron?

Thanks to LeBron’s realization, the Tunes are now allowed to use their zany antics on the court. They have a fighting chance now! They make a grand entrance on the playing field. Third quarter, and the tone is set by The Brow getting run over by a train, courtesy of Wile E. Coyote. Elsewhere, Wet-Fire’s liquid form gets absorbed into Gossamer’s fur.

That's not "Gossamer inexplicably with a child's mind" from
the Looney Tunes Show, but I'll take it!

Side-note, I like how Gossamer recently went from just some monster in early WB cartoons to a full member of the gang. The same could almost have been said of Penelope, the poor cat that kept getting chased by Pepe Le Pew, but she was removed because of Pepe’s problematic personality. I get it, maybe the director, Malcolm D. Lee, decided it was wiser not to shake that hornet’s nest. And perhaps trying a different angle for the skunk (like showing him working on bettering himself) would have broken the rhythm of the film, who the Heck knows. Whatever.

😬Today, in "are you SUUURE you want this in your film?"

Even LeBron participates to the shenanigans – well, as much as a live-action human can, anyway. Al-G steals a microphone from Bugs during a trick and, in coaching his team, accidentally drops a rhyme – which triggers a special Hip Hop round. Uh oh. The court changes to a dancefloor with the Tunes dressed in ‘90s rap clothing. Ugh, can’t believe I’m saying that, but… we get a rap battle where Porky drops some bars to make fun of Al-G.

…

…

Good God am I glad that this gif exists. Do I even need to say anything else? This was painful. Were those extra 150 points for style worth it?