Free Guy Review: Ryan Reynolds And Jodie Comer Starrer Fails To Impress

Check out our review of Ryan Reynolds' Free Guy

15792 Reads |  

Free Guy Review: Ryan Reynolds And Jodie Comer Starrer Fails To Impress
2Stars

Ryan Reynolds is a likeable actor…or maybe ‘actor’ is  going too far. A supremely charismatic star, whom I always enjoy watching. After sitting through the much-hyped Free Guy in a near-empty theatre, overpowered but underwhelmed by all the sound and tomfoolery I was  left scratching my head.

Where in Ryan’s impressive repertoire does this film belong? Well, it is no Deadpool for sure. But it is not Green Lantern either. For those who came in late Green Lantern is to Ryan’s career what Zero is to Shah Rukh Khan. Got it?

I started off completely detesting Free Guy. It features Reynolds  as Guy (free or  not, you decide) a character in a video game who doesn’t know he is not real. Having based  the entire film on this  monumental premise , the co-writers  Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn frequently sit back to admire their own ingenuity.

Some of the episodes specially featuring Taika Waititi as the gaming tycoon are so amateurishly written they appear to be inhouse jokes  with the punchline missing.

The mood is one of  endless self-congratulation with the hero-trapped-in-a-video-game premise breathing down the plot’s neck like an ill-fitting choker around an overly  dressed dowager’s neck. There is  just no quality-control here as Guy swishes around from one overstuffed  adventure to another, each more callow than the previous, so that there comes a time in our movie-viewing experience when we find ourselves asking: is this all?

To call the proceedings lightweight would be an understatement.Besides being an  ostensibly grand  gamers’  delight, Free Guy is also a love  story between Guy and Millie(Jodie Comer) who is not only one of the builders of the game but also a participant  in the game where Millie meets Guy and the inevitable happens. They exchange  glances, share bubblegum  ice cream(is there really  such a flavour? Does it  matter?) and Guy confesses  he wants to kiss Millie “badly”(you know the joke that follows).

This confession comes as a  surprise  to us,since there is zero chemistry between Reynold and his  co-star  Jodie Comer. He shares  a better  kinship with his  best friend(Lil Rel Howery). The best moment  is  when Guy’s buddy tells him why it’s okay if they are not real  people. To  Guy’s friend the moment is real. And that’s all that matters.

Sorry, we can’t share the same level of enthusiasm. The film is  a victim of lazy writing and self indulgent plot conflicts that push the  characters into an uncomfortable corner from where they  can retreat to no safe place except extinction. Too ambitious for its own  good? Or not  ambitious enough to amount to something? I am not sure. And it doesn’t really matter.



Image Sources: YouTube/20thCenturyStudios
Related Topics:
Advertisement
Advertisement
  • Trending