Free Guy – Movie Review

We at Rhys Reviews were devastated to hear of the passing of the incredible comedian Sean Lock who died at the age of 58. He was an incredibly clever comedian who never failed to make an audience laugh and will be missed by fans of comedy everywhere! Sean was probably most known for his stint as a team captain on 8 out of 10 cats (normal and countdown) where he was known for his hilarious sketches and banter with Jon Richardson and the host Jimmy Carr. He will be seriously missed and our thoughts/prayers are with the family! On a lighter note , someone else who rose to fame via performances on 8 out of 10 cats does countdown is Joe Lycett. One of my favourite clips was his sketch during one of the episode where he discusses evading a parking ticket due to insufficiency evidence which was in equal parts hilarious and equal parts brilliant. Most recently Joe has been in the news for changing his name to Hugo Boss to protest the gate keeping that the company of the same name are doing regarding language such as boss. Supposedly , they have been issuing numerous cease-and-desist letter to small companies that use “boss” throughout the company which to me is absolutely rediculous as surely a company cannot lay claim to a term that has been in common usage for the longest time. Joe has become almost a champion for the underdogs with his latest show we’re he contests similar incidents and it is this idea of standing up for those who are being taken advantage of by bigger companies that truely mark him out as an incredible and caring figure!

For this weeks movie review we are back at the luxurious Everyman cinema in Cardiff Bay. If you haven’t read our last movie review you can read it at https://rhysreviews.com/2021/08/10/jungle-cruise-screening-experience-review/ which was our first experience of Everyman and were able to get free tickets due to being a member of BAFTA. I also discovered that you can actually rent out the cinema room for private events and you can bet that when Rhys Review the movie or musical (whichever comes first) this is where we will be hosting our launch event! This time I decided to see the movie “Free Guy” which stars Ryan Reynolds who was also the voice of Pikachu in the live action Pokemon film! It follow Guy who is a bank teller who discovers that he is actually a NPC (non-playable character) within a video game who evolves his algorithm to because a viral sensation. The movie is set between the real world , where an eccentric boss has stolen code from a small coder to use in a rival game , and the movie where the characters are trying to discover the stolen code. I thought that the casting of Taika Waititi who played the eccentric villain in this movie was amazing with the quirky but violent nature being perfectly portrayed.

The most incredible thing about this movie is that they knew exactly the type of person who would watch this film. The film understood the different facets and interests of the people who would watch this type of film with references to other movies , games and iconic moments inside of it. We had numerous references to the avengers franchise with a hulk hand , captain America’s shield and the infamous fading into salt moment from the final film. Also there was the inclusion of light sabres from stars wars (complete with the classic musical motifs) and pick axes from Fornite. Chris Evan’s , Hugh Jackman , Dwayne Johnson a s numerous famous gaming youtubers appeared in the film , both as a voice and as characters , which shows that the creators had thought about who would watch this movie and what would get them excited. Aside from making the audience jump up from their seats and cheer they also included a plethora of comedic moments including Guy (Ryan Reynold’s character) jumping off a building site to cling onto a wrecking ball as the iconic Miley Cyrus song of the same name was playing only to miss and fall to the ground! Now was this movie incredibly silly at time yes … but was it very entertaining absolutely! My only qualm with this film was that it could have probably ended 20/30 minutes before it actually did as there was an awfully awkward loving encounter moments that I thought that the movie could have done without.

Overall this was a very fun film that showcased its in-depth understanding of audience and how to appeal to them. This would have been the perfect film to launch a game similar to the one within the film in the real world as people would want to see what it is actually like! I would rate it 5 out of 5 stars and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys video games and superhero films.