Main character

Director Shawn Levy (Stranger Things) talks about video games, artificial intelligence and the meaning of life in Free Guy. The intelligent script from Matt Lieberman (Scoob!) and Zak Penn (The Avengers) is both funny and touching.

Guy (Ryan Reynolds) is an ordinary average person who gets up every morning, says hello to his goldfish, wears the same clothes, does the same job as a bank teller … and lies down on the ground six times a day. for robbery. But one day he decides that he wants more. He wants love and by the will of fate he sees the ideal girl. The only problem is that Guy is a non-player character (NPC) in an open world MMORPG, a video game played by thousands of people around the world at the same time. The one he falls in love with, MolotovGirl, is actually Millie (Jodie Comer), one of the real people playing the game. Even though he has become self-aware, both are unaware of his NPC status. Unfortunately, their romance is doomed to tragedy because Antoine (Taika Waititi), the owner of a gaming company, intends to delete it in two days. They must work together to find a way to prevent the servers from going down before Guy's world disappears forever.

«Protagonist» is one of those rare films that grabs viewers in the first five minutes and holds them until the credits roll. The writing is excellent and the writers are clearly very familiar with video games. There are so many references to popular games that only the most avid gamer would be able to recognize them all in one viewing. Many of these references are clever and show the playfulness of the writers who knew their audience would get it. Levy does a great job of directing the actors and action to keep the pace going. Reynolds is fantastic as a man struggling to find his place and life in a world he only partially understands. Waititi is a bit overdone as a villain. Even this works in a film revolving around the world of video games both within the game itself and within the game studio. Adding to the fun is the use of several famous game streamers who commentate on the action and are included in a very organic and believable way.

Special effects and computer graphics make video games look realistic. A nice touch is the normal realism when viewing the world from inside the video game, and the less-than-human appearance of the characters when viewed from outside the game. The animators were given excellent instructions and reference material to ensure character and game references were true to the source material. Because of this, viewers will definitely enjoy watching the game unfold, and many will likely want to play it too.

The Main Character is a fun, entertaining and often comical film that both respects and pokes fun at the passion for online gaming. It treads the line between the two so carefully that almost anyone who has played video games will enjoy the callbacks, and anyone who hasn't can still enjoy the movie without having to press any buttons.