Several brilliant new posters for the Ryan Reynolds action-comedy Free Guy are here to remind us all of the movie's video game roots, paying homage to such classics as Street Fighter II, Doom, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Dropping Reynolds' unsuspecting NPC (Non-player character) into several familiar video game worlds including Super Mario 64, Minecraft and Among Us, the posters are a hint at Free Guy's love of the platform that inspired it.
Seeing Reynolds visage transformed into various recognizable animation styles is nothing short of delightful, and it's difficult to pick a favorite among these excellent artworks. At a push though, it's probably the Doom one.
Led by Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds, Free Guy takes place in the open world video game Free City, and follows Guy (Reynolds), a non-player character (NPC), working as a bank teller. Thanks to a program developed by programmers Millie (Comer) and Keys (Keery) inserted into Free City by the publisher Antwan (Waititi), Guy becomes self-aware of his world being a video game, and takes steps to make himself the hero, creating a race against time to save the game before the developers can shut it down.
Directed by Shawn Levy from a screenplay by Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn and a story by Lieberman Free Guy stars the likes of Jodie Comer, Lil Rel Howery, Joe Keery, Utkarsh Ambudkar and Taika Waititi alongside Reynolds. Free Guy also features some of the video gaming world's most influential figures, all of whom will drop in for cameos in during the video-game infused escapdes. Just some of these include Imane "Pokimane" Anys, Lannan "LazarBeam" Eacott, Seán William "Jacksepticeye" McLoughlin, Tyler "Ninja" Blevins and Daniel "DanTDM" Middleton.
Despite wearing its video game loving heart on its sleeve, Reynolds has assured wider audiences that movie is not just for video game fans, with the actor believing that the story speaks to a broader human experience that the majority will relate to. "I always look at it like, sports movies are good metaphors," Reynolds explained. "The greatest sports movies ever made are not actually about sports. Field of Dreams, I wouldn't characterize that as a baseball story. They used baseball as a vehicle to tell a really beautiful story about a son and a father trying to connect. I think that we're doing the same thing. We're using the video game world, the Free City world, and video game culture as a sort of vehicle to tell this really beautiful and powerful human story."
Free Guy has so far been met with positive feedback from critics, and currently holds an approval rating of 85% on Rotten Tomatoes. Our very own Julian Roman found a lot to enjoy in Free Guy, commending the movie for its positive, accepting message and concluding that audiences will "walk out with a smile." Having been pushed back three times from a July 2020 release date due to the ongoing global situation, Free Guy will finally hit screens in the United States on August 13, 2021 in RealD 3D ,IMAX and Dolby Cinema by 20th Century Studios.