YMMV / Free Guy

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Antwan is definitely a Corrupt Corporate Executive, a Manchild, and a Mean Boss already, but over the course of his Villainous Breakdown, he becomes full-blown Ax-Crazy and personally destroys the servers for Free City to keep it from being discovered that it was built using the code of Life Itself. Was he always a selfish sociopath who only cares about money and would resort to violence for his own benefit, or is he taking drastic but necessary action to protect himself and his company from an awful scandal? After all, he's already facing a lawsuit from Millie, and she'd definitely win if it was made public that he stole the code of Life Itself to make Free City, and such a secret could destroy his company, his reputation, and his career. Not to mention that the movie unfolds as Soonami is preparing to launch Free City 2, so Antwan is under extra pressure to make sure it goes as smoothly as possible, especially since he knows Free City 2 is an Obvious Beta and there will definitely be backlash after it releases. Even his destruction of the servers may be justified in his mind — he already planned to shut down Free City once Free City 2 launched, so Antwan may just see destroying the servers as getting rid of hardware that was going to be replaced or upgraded soon anyway.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • Guy's and the other NPCs' ability to speak to and interact audibly with others without being limited by their recorded canned dialogue is actually entirely plausible thanks to voice AI, which is seeing increasing usage in game development. Assuming this was a feature that Keys and Millie programmed into their original Life Itself AI, they wouldn't be limited to just pre-recorded dialogue as one would have expected, especially with the 20 Minutes into the Future setting.
  • The use of a genuine Lightsaber not causing any dismemberment or visible damage to a game character is even used within the franchise itself, with Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi and Darth Vader (and Yoda's) inclusion in Soul Calibur featuring it.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: Heading into release, box office speculation was very much against the film’s chances, for a number of reasons — the rise of the Delta variant of COVID-19, the failures of several would-be blockbusters, the fact that movies based on video games generally don't perform well, audience apathy toward big-budget original films, concerns about Ryan Reynolds’ drawing power outside of the Deadpool series^note particularly as The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard had disappointed at the box office two months prior, being the first theatrical-only Disney release in 10 months, and more. In the end, though, the movie proved up to the challenge, opening above low expectations and then holding spectacularly well over the succeeding weeks, even after Disney stablemate Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings entered the fray. By the time it was made available on digital platforms, Free Guy had become one of the highest-grossing films of the pandemic, and Reynolds had announced a sequel was in development.
• Awesome Music: "Fantasy" by Mariah Carey, as it's the movie's theme and is sure to get stuck in the heads of many who see the movie — heck, it already did when the first trailer came out. This is then coupled with the ethereal remix that plays during the climax, which also doubles as both "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune and The Cast Showoff, as it was performed by Jodie Comer herself.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Mouser, due to his insistence that the rabbit is an apex predator, his chemistry with Keys and for his Heel–Face Turn after Antwan destroys the servers.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Soonami is clearly modeled after Blizzard Entertainment, with a similar aesthetic and corporate structure, along with its weather-phenomena name and similar logo splash screen in Free City. The film portrays its CEO, Antwan, as a Corrupt Corporate Executive and ends with Soonami being riddled with scandals, heavily indicating that Antwan is going to be let go. Because the film was delayed due to the COVID-19 Pandemic ^note this plotline, and the film's story in general, was not altered during these delays, it was released just after Blizzard erupted in a bevy of scandals, ranging from terrible games to sexual harassment, causing its president, J. Allen Brack to resign.
    • There's some parallels that can be seen between the Free City games and Blizzard's own Overwatch. In the movie, it's stated that players will be unable to transfer their original Free City progress to Free City 2, despite advertisements promising otherwise. A similar feature was promised for the transfer between Overwatch and its pseudo-sequel, only for players to be unable to do so due to day 1 bugs and other issues. Additionally, both saw the servers for the first game get shut down in order to make way for the new game.
  • The teaser for the second trailer has the cast stating that they don’t know if the film’s release date will stay the same. Weeks later, the cast's fears were proven true when the COVID-19 Pandemic prompted the film to delay again. But it also turned out to be… (see Hilarious in Hindsight)
  • At the end of the "Deadpool and Korg React" trailer, Deadpool says that he'd prefer watching Thor: The Dark World after being annoyed with Korg's suggestion on how to join the MCU. While this was meant to be a jab at how Dark World was the lowest-rated MCU film at the time, Thor: Love and Thunder has since gained an even colder reception than the aforementioned film, causing many people to reflect on Dark World more fondly by contrast. In addition, Deadpool being annoyed with Korg's comments can also fall into this trope since Korg became a Base-Breaking Character in Love and Thunder for his constant quips and eating up a lot of screentime.
• He Really Can Act: Lil Rel Howery as Buddy, who's known as the comic relief in films like Get Out and Bird Box, gets the two most poignant scenes of the entire film (when Guy confides in him after realizing that his world is a game, and Buddy’s Disney Death.)
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Ryan Reynolds suggested that the film might come out either before or after the next Olympics. The film ended up being released the weekend after the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics (held in 2021, after themselves being delayed) closed.
  • Free City 2 (which is inspired by GTA Online) being released as a nearly unplayable and buggy mess became a lot funnier when Rockstar Games released GTA: The Definitive Edition, which was criticized for being so buggy that it was even compared to Cyberpunk 2077. The fact that Rockstar pulled the original versions of the games off online stores prior to the release of the remake, which is exactly like Antwan shutting down Free City 1 in favor of the sequel, makes it even funnier.
• Ho Yay: Quite strongly between Guy and Buddy, particularly in the second half of the film. Buddy explicitly refers to Guy as "someone he loves", and his Ambiguously Gay beats with Dude during the climax, where he enthusiastically feels his pecs, definitely add fuel to it.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • Some people became eager for the film when it was announced that video game streamers Ninja, Pokimane, LazarBeam, and Jacksepticeye were going to have cameo roles.
  • Non-video game fans most likely wanted to see Alex Trebek one last time.
  • Then there's the fact Taika Waititi, who gained Creator Worship among the geek community for his work on Thor: Ragnarok and What We Do in the Shadows among others, plays the Big Bad, Antwan.
  • Must we say anymore about "God's Perfect Idiot?"
• Les Yay: After Guy inspires the Barista to try new things (ahem) and the Bombshell to realize that she doesn't need a man, the two girls become...close for the rest of the movie (after the Bombshell writes a book about sexism).
• Moral Event Horizon: Antwan is an insufferable Jerkass already, but he finally crosses the line in the climax when he smashes up Free City's servers with an axe just to spite Guy, Keys, and Millie, and nearly dooming the NPCs in the process. Mouser turns on Antwan afterwards, thinking he's gone too far.
• Narm Charm: Millie kissing Guy to give him his memories back sounds ridiculous on paper. Somehow, the film makes it work. It helps that the film's composer, Christophe Beck, recycled part of his work on Paperman for the score for this scene, lending the scene a lot of emotional power.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • When Guy summons Captain America's shield, complete with an extract of the Avengers theme, during his fight with Dude in the climax, none other than Chris Evans himself is shown reacting to it.
  "What the shit?!"
  • The late Alex Trebek makes his final appearance in the film, leading many to see the movie just to see him in it.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: A couple of them involving Guy:
  • First, the obvious one between Guy, Millie, and Keys. Although the story gives a quite solid plot justification for Millie and Keys ending up together, and they have a couple of scenes where they show some genuine chemistry, there are people who believe it was still quite undercooked when compared to the much more extensively developed relationship between Guy and Millie.
  • Then we have Guy/Buddy. Although Guy never shows Ambigiously Bi tendencies the same way Buddy does, the possibility is still there now that Guy is moving on from Keys' original code and has given up on Millie. Not to mention, Guy and Buddy actually live in the same world, unlike Millie, who literally could only see things through her monitor and had no physical contact of any kind.
• Special Effect Failure: While all the characters and locations in Free City are portrayed as live-action when in-game, one background character dancing on a pole off the side of a building is very obvious CGI.
  • Also, when Free City is collapsing, one NPC jumping a gap is obviously CG, moving unnaturally fluidly and having that telltale clay shine to their body.
• Spiritual Adaptation:
  • The popular visual novel Doki Doki Literature Club! also focuses on the concept of a video game NPC becoming aware that they're in a game and falling in love with a player, although Monika doesn't take this revelation as well as Guy does.
  • The interactions between the game world and the real world bring Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard to mind, although Guy isn't the protagonist of his game like Matt was. Similarly, the antagonists of both want to throw out the old games to make way for their own pet projects. They even use some similar imagery in how weapons and damage are portrayed in the game, with blues, pixelated dissolves, and behind-the-back hammerspace being common.
  • At a time when Disney seems obsessed with giving its animated films live-action remakes, this movie works remarkably well as an adaptation of Wreck-It Ralph, aside from the fact that Ralph is aware of his status as a game character from the very start while Guy learns of it over the course of the movie.
  • This film is also the closest we'll get to a Hollywood adaptation of Ra.One, due to having similar fanservice, humor, and story structure.
• Strangled by the Red String: Millie ends up falling in love with Keys at the end of the film. The two spent half the film arguing, and their relationship seems built on other people telling them they have chemistry. Guy is alright with this, despite being in love with her for the majority of the movie, and justifies it by saying he's not real despite the running theme throughout the movie that he is a properly sentient life form.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The Nostalgia Critic, who was otherwise pretty unfavorable towards the movie, thought the idea of a video game character and the man who programmed him being in love with the same woman was a fascinating concept and worth being a movie itself, though even he admitted that it wasn't executed as well as he'd hoped.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Alex Trebek appears in a cameo, but due to COVID-related release delays the film came out in theaters after his death and in the midst of the search for his successor on Jeopardy!.
  • There are also a number of dated references that happen due to the film being in Development Hell for a number of years. Characters have a tendency to use slang terms that have been phased out or used far less in the gaming community and then there are things like the awkward dance that Channing Tatum's cameo character does (by the time the film premiered, kids had long stopped doing it) that also make it quite clear that the script was written during the 2010s, but didn't make it out of the gate until the 2020s. Most of it would've been avoided with a little clean up of the script for outdated stuff, so instead the film feels a little bit like a time capsule of the 2010s that just happened to be released in the 2020s.

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