Metacritic-Rezensionen

Less inventive that it gives itself credit for, Free Guy qualifies as a summer blockbuster with something mildly compelling to say; not the most articulate or substantial in its exploration of its most interesting ideas, to be sure, but enjoyable nonetheless

In a genre where winky self-awareness has become standard-issue, Free might have come off as manic and hollow; instead, it has fun having a heart.

This epic, crowd-pleasing adventure, one of the funniest movies of the year, needn’t be as good as “The Truman Show” or “Wreck-it-Ralph” to be entertaining. It just needs to emotionally feel real, as real as Guy feels himself to be. In that regard, “Free Guy” is a winner.

But there’s something surprising about its approach to both blockbuster filmmaking and Ryan Reynolds star vehicles. It’s at once a Deadpool riff and the absolute opposite, a violent video game movie that’s about how fighting isn’t actually the answer. And what’s more, it commits to those lofty aspirations, couching a sweet little love story in the CG-addled mayhem of a Ryan Reynolds action-adventure flick.

Free Guy delivers a first hour that is outrageously entertaining, stuffed with gonzo action, goofy gags, star power, big ideas, and plenty of Easter Eggs for lovers of movies and video games. However, in its second half, the joyful journey is derailed by a slog of a side quest, falling short of the potential set-up.

Whatever its loftier existential ambitions, Free Guy is never much more than big screen eye candy with Reynolds’ grinning deadpan anchoring it with his amusing over and under reactions to all that befalls Guy. And if you love Reynolds — And seriously, who doesn’t? — that’s enough.

Free Guy isn’t going to have many MA theses written about it, but it has entertainment value.

If Free Guy really was a video game, it’s not one you’d play over and over. But as a one-time lark, it’s entertaining enough to invest in.

Free Guy is nothing if not a movie that wins you over in spite of your better judgment and best defenses, but its “be the change you wish to see in the world” energy feels like a micro-transactional smokescreen for a corporate monoculture that only values creativity so far as it can be used to fool us into paying for things we already own.

Not quite ‘Ready Player One Star’, but this is an odd duck: a Black Mirror-ish concept played for laughs, which ends up getting tangled up in its own code.