Review of Free Guy (2021) by Nateed — 22 Aug 2021

Free Guy was such an entertaining film, yet I still felt like it needed more. The basic story was great, and Shawn Levy does a solid job of making the world come to life. However, what was there felt very basic.

It didn't feel like it was trying to do anything entirely new. The pacing was also off as some parts of the film felt so exposition-heavy with it quickly reverting to the wacky adventure. I guess you could say that filmmakers were keeping the audience on their toes, but it doesn't work the best for a blockbuster like this.

The production design also falls a bit flat. I would have loved to have explored the world of Free City some more as what was there was not the most exciting. Yes, having Free City feel like a normal city was the right choice for the Free City game, but even the places where NPCs weren't allowed to go felt basic.

The cast was also a mixed bag as some did very well, and some did not-so-great. Ryan Reynolds does a decent job here. I don't think he is doing his best acting in this film, but he gets the job done. I do wish that Reynolds was a bit more expressive.

Some of the scenes fell a tad bit flat because he wasn't giving the energy that was needed to make the scene work. Jodie Comer, on the other hand, was so much fun to watch. I loved watching Comer on screen.

I thought that Comer was the best part of the film. Taika Waititi was the actor that I thought did the worst. He was not funny whatsoever, and you can tell he was trying way too hard. Waititi has other great performances, and this is not one of them.

Utkarsh Ambudkar and Lil Rel Howery are nice additions to the cast and have some funny lines. Something I adored with the film was the VFX. This film is so visually stunning with none of the VFX looking sloppy or wonky.

The sloppy part of the movie was the editing. There were such weird cuts that made the film seem a bit jarring at times. It was a shame because the cinematography was pretty solid in this film. There were a lot of fun shots and some great lighting throughout the whole movie.

Overall, Free Guy is an entertaining mixed bag. While there were good aspects to it like the visual effects, the cinematography, and half the cast, there were also some iffy parts like the editing, parts of the story, and the production design.

The combination of the two aspects leads to a basic yet entertaining film. Read more reviews like this at postcreditreviews.