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?

VGFlicks: Space Jam: A New Legacy (Part 3)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4

Countdown to the Game

Several plot threads happen concurrently at this point. Let’s see how they evolve on the way to the match.

Would make sense that Lola would be the second-in-
command, she is the second best player in the team!

Who in the making of this film decided that Granny
needed to be the biggest badass in the cast??

Back on the ship with a full cast, LeBron tries to teach basic basketball to the Tunes. Lola, as a second-in-command due to her knowledge, demonstrates basic shots. Bugs tries to explain to LeBron that Tunes tend to do things differently and disregard rules, but the superstar doesn’t listen.

Practice devolves into toony shenanigans, with Yosemite Sam bringing his guns to a basket fight, Tweety distracting Sylvester with yarn, and the Road Runner swapping balls with bombs. Special mention to Granny doing daredevil tricks. Since when is the elderly lady the most badass of all the Tunes? It’s chaos! Pandemonium! And it leaves LeBron aghast at all the nonsense.

They aren't exactly here for tourism.

In the real world, LeBron’s friend Malik is desperately trying to get Warner Bros. Studios’ security to help him look for the star player and his son, who both disappeared right after the meeting, but the guard he talks to is appalled that LeBron is gone yet unwilling to help. Thankfully, Kamiyah James, their other son Darius, and their daughter Xosha, all show up to lend a hand.

The family walks around the studio to start their search, when Darius receives an invitation from an unknown app, the Warner 3000, announcing a peculiar match: Father VS Son. Following signal of LeBron's phone, they find their way to the servers room, deep underground.

VGFlicks: Space Jam: A New Legacy (Part 2)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4

Bugs Needs Friends

And the vehicle is Runawous Truckous.

When we left off, LeBron James had just encountered Bugs Bunny on Tune World. The athlete is like a kid, fanboying over meeting his hero. As for Bugs? He has stayed alone for so long that it’s taken a toll on his sanity. He immediately tries to pull LeBron into shenanigans like the Rabbit/Duck Season routine. The bunny has been left to talk at similes of his co-stars. And, well, you can’t pull pranks on pumpkins.

Though it helps that he got turned into one, it’s funny how well LeBron James takes to being a Tune. In comparison, part of the original Space Jam was Michael Jordan figuring out that merely existing in the Looney Tunes’ world gave him toony abilities. Jordan got rolled into a ball, dribbled around, and tossed through the hoop, in one of the freakier scenes for young me (I was a kid when that film came out!) and he still didn’t catch on until seconds before the end of the match. And it took Wayne Knight’s character getting flattened, re-inflated, and then farting the extraneous air around the stadium, for him to understand!

Forget how Bugs can get drunk on carrot juice, I want to
know why LeBron ended up almost disguised as Lucky Luke.

When the basketball player mentions Al-G, he gets the full story: The AI showed up one day and convinced the other Tunes to go live on the other IP planets (IPlanets? I’m gonna call them IPlanets.), where they’d have a wide variety of new experiences. Bugs stayed on Tune World because it’s his home, and the only place where he can be himself. LeBron mentions that he needs to create a basketball team to face off against Al-G; Bugs, of course, points out that a real-life player and a team of toons facing a villainous team in a high-stakes game sounds awfully familiar.

This will require visiting the other IPlanets, so they need a spaceship. Nothing simpler – just declare any parcel of land property of Earth, plant a flag, and Marvin the Martian will come down. Dude just can’t help himself. Bugs and LeBron steal the ship, leaving the Martian stranded.

Quick! Let's Grand Theft Spaceship!

VGFlicks: Space Jam: A New Legacy (Part 1)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4

The movie the least suited to the ongoing theme for this year's film reviews, Space Jam: A New Legacy is the reason why I specify “Trapped in a virtual world” rather than “Trapped in a game”. However, there is a major link to video games in its plot, which means that by my metrics, it counts to be reviewed here.

Chuck Jones was not a fan of Space Jam, because he didn't
think Bugs would ever ask for outside help. At least, in A
New Legacy, it's someone coming to him for help instead.
Also, eeeesh. Mr. Jordan, forget acting, stick to sports.

I guess I’d better discuss the history of its “franchise”, if we can call it that. An idea this bizarre has its origins in the world of advertising, where Michael Jordan starred alongside Bugs Bunny in two commercials, Hare Jordan and Aerospace Jordan, both advertising Nike’s Air Jordan shoes. Chance meetings eventually led to a Nike executive being given the idea by Ivan Reitman for a feature-length film with the same formula. The plans were halted by Jordan’s retirement from basketball in 1993 to try baseball, but resumed when the athlete returned to the sport in 1995, with the commercials’ director, Joe Pytka, directing the film. Despite a… tumultuous production, shall we say, the film was finished and released to theaters on November 15th, 1996. The film hilariously implied that the Looney Tunes were responsible for Jordan going back to basketball.

Talks of a sequel happened immediately, but miscommunications caused those plans to be changed, then scrapped. The poor performance of Looney Tunes: Back in Action at the box-office was another nail in the coffin… until new talks arose in 2014, this time centering the film around LeBron James, another of the biggest basketball stars of all time (I know very little about sports and even I knew of the guy!), and with Malcolm D. Lee in the director’s chair. Filming started in July of 2019 and ended in March 2020, right before the Covid-19 pandemic got really bad; but since all that remained was animation, production wasn’t hindered by the world-changing event. The finished film was released to theaters on July 16th, 2021.

Much of what I have to say is tied to the film’s plot itself – so why not cover it, and get to my talking points when they come up? Also – why call this A New Legacy when, aside from two mentions, there’s no link between the two films?

From child to superstar

The film opens in 1998 in Akron, Ohio, where a young LeBron James is dropped off at a basketball match by his supportive mom. He is a big fan of the Looney Tunes, as evidenced by his backpack. So although he should be focusing on the game, his attention is diverted when his best friend Malik shows up with a present: An old Game Boy with a Looney Tunes game cartridge in it.

Oh hey, that's The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle!