An excellent blend of comedy, romance and action, Free Guy makes a perfect selection for movie night. Movies like Free Guy, that attempt to combine comedy and sci-fi, are very high risk high reward. When executed well, the outcome is a movie for everyone to obsess over, but there is a high probability of a flop. The line for Free Guy to balance on was very thin, but shrunk even more so with the addition of multiple cameos from non-actors. Despite the difficulties faced, Free Guy was a huge success earning $331.4 million in the box office. 

Free Guy follows the main character, Guy, played by Ryan Reynolds. Guy lives in Free City, a place where crime and violence is frequent, but no one seems to mind. The people Guy refers to as “sunglasses” are the cool guys who commit these crimes and acts of violence. As the story progresses we meet MolotovGirl. In addition to meeting her we also glean that Free City is a part of a video game and Guy is a character. However, Guy is not a submissive character and seems to start making decisions on his own. The story then follows MolotovGirl in real life. Her name is actually Millie, played by Jodie Comer. We see that Millie and her partner Keys, played by Joe Keery, created the original coding and idea for Free City before their idea and work was stolen by the current owner of Free City. The movie continues as Guy helps Millie recover her stolen work to gain what was rightfully hers. 

With actors like Reynolds and Keery there was bound to be comedy, but the comedic plot was woven in seamlessly to the action and romance aspects. It made the movie very cohesive and did not give any element of cheesy-ness, which is often a problem in comedy/action movies. 

In addition to the main cast, the movie also featured rotating cameos from other actors, such as Dwayne Johnson, Tina Fey, Chris Evens and even popular video game streamers like DanTDM, Ninja, and LazarBeam. In most cases this feels like a money grab, throwing in as many popular names as possible to gain viewers, but in the case of Free Guy, the cameos added to the comedy of the movie and made it all the more enjoyable.

Free Guy was not good solely because of the comedy or action packed plot, but because it contained a lot of substance with an underlying theme. Free City is first a city based off of violence and crime for no other reason but personal gain. However, as Guy’s character develops he starts making his own decisions to fight the violence which in turn makes players question why they are fighting in the first place. Themes such as these are important to recognize, especially in today’s society where there is an urge to be violent without reason. 

While Free Guy effortlessly combined comedy and action, the ending felt a little rushed. The first half of the movie was at a good speed, developing the audience’s knowledge of the characters and the video game itself. However, towards the end the action escalated very quickly as the characters were thrown ever-shrinking deadlines to solve their problems. The romance also developed too quickly at the end and felt like it jumped from zero to one hundred in the span of minutes. 

Despite the pacing issues, Free Guy was an excellent movie that pulled off the tumultuous task of blending comedy and action while maintaining its substance and is definitely worth watching.