SPECS APPEAL
RYAN REYNOLDS AND JODIE COMER ENJOY SOME VIRTUAL INSANITY IN THIS ACTION COMEDY
IT’S Groundhog Day yet again as Ryan Reynolds’s alarm clock signals the start of another time loop.
Like countless mornings before, Guy (is this his name, or is he a more generic kind of ‘guy’?) will pull on the same blue shirt, order the same coffee and go to work in the same bank.
Even the arrival of the daily armed robber doesn’t faze the happy-go-lucky bank teller. As he’s ordered to lay on the floor, he keeps chatting to his security guard best pal (Lil Rel Howery).
Guy, as a minor Non Player Character (or NPC) in a Grand Theft Autostyle video game, is a simple soul with very simple needs.
That’s until he breaks his programming by stealing a human avatar’s sunglasses.
Suddenly, he can see what the players see. Now the streets are packed with neon icons signalling missions, handy medical kits and vital power-ups.
Suddenly, daily robberies and car-jackings don’t seem that normal.
You don’t need a pair of magic specs to see what powers Free Guy, which has elements of Wreck-It Ralph, Westworld, The LEGO Movie, The Truman Show and Ready Player One hard-coded into its set-up.
There is a touch of déjà vu about Guy too. He is supposed to be a naive everyman, but Reynolds can’t resist delivering winking Deadpool-esque one-liners. Still, there’s something reassuring about its familiarity.
Director Shawn Levy (Night At The Museum) isn’t reaching for clever satire – he sticks to crafting a crowdpleasing blockbuster.
Killing Eve star Jodie Comer makes an impressive big-screen debut playing both game designer Millie and her gun-toting avatar Molotov Girl, who turns Guy’s head while trying to save the virtual world from a megalomaniac developer (Taika Waititi).
It’s amusing, spectacular and weirdly romantic. It moves at such a clip you don’t notice that not a lot of it makes sense.
In cinemas now