But even though I’d been tracking Reynolds and his usual hilarious self-aware online and social advertising for the film, including this brilliant bit on Reynold’s YouTube channel titled “Deadpool and Korg React,” Free Guy wasn’t quite enough to draw me back to my local cineplex. The film took the recently-all-too-familiar torturous route to the big screen, planned for release on July 3, 2020, then moving to December, then May 2021, then finally settling on—and sticking with—an August 13 release. Fortunately, it had a fast-track to the home market, becoming available to digital retailers like Kaleidescape just 45 days after its theatrical release.

Interestingly, this is the one of the first 20th Century Fox releases following the company’s acquisition by Disney. IT currently isn’t available on Disney+—there is a link to it if you search on Google, but it takes you to an error page—so if you want to watch it now, Kaleidescape offers the highest-quality version available in full 4K HDR with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack.

Free Guy is one of those movies that has two different levels of appeal. For the hardcore gamer, there are tons of inside nods, winks, and cameos that will resonate as true and familiar, but having an understanding of gaming and open worlds isn’t necessary to enjoying the film and having a good time.

It also feels like a bit of a mash-up of other movies. This isn’t meant as a negative, just that as much as it is new, it also feels familiar and you can tell it borrows ideas and style from movies like The Lego Movie, Ready Player One, The Truman Show, The Matrix, and Live Die Repeat and videogames like Grand Theft Auto and Fortnite, but interspersed with Reynolds’ snarky humor and one liners such as compared with ice cream “coffee tastes like liquid suffering.” There are also some fun cameos—many you might not recognize until the credits—and a couple of really fun refs to the MCU. 

The film opens in Free City, an open-world game environment where sunglasses-people are heroes, or at least are human players acting like gods doing whatever they want, which is typically wreaking all manner of havoc on the city and any NPCs (non-playable characters) they encounter wandering around going through their programmed routines. 

One of the NPCs is Guy (Reynolds), a bank teller that wakes up every morning, says hello to his goldfish, gets the same scalding cup of medium coffee, cream, two sugars, and then heads in to work to be robbed over and over along with his best friend, a Kevin Hart-esque security guard named Buddy (Lil Rel Howery).

One day while headed home, Guy encounters Molotov Girl (Jodie Comer), a player whose real name is Millie. Hearing her humming a song awakens something in Guy, and the next time he’s robbed, instead of just lying down and taking it, Guy decides to grab the sunglasses from his robber. When he puts them on, his eyes are opened to the “real” world around him, and he sees things the way human gamers do. This gives him the power to be Free and the ability to break his routine and do whatever he wants, which is trying to track down Molotov Girl. During his exploits of trying to level up, he becomes a worldwide sensation known as “Blue Shirt Guy” due to his ever-present “skin” choice of light blue shirts and khaki pants. 

While this is all happening in the Free City game world, Millie is involved in a lawsuit with Soonami Games in the real world. She contends that head developer Antwan (Taika Waititi) stole the source code she and her partner Walter (Joe Keery) developed for another project known as “Free Life,” which would give NPCs far greater AI and the ability to grow and act like real people, and that the evidence lies hidden somewhere inside the game. The race is on for Millie to find the proof she needs before Antwan shuts down the Free City servers and switches over to his new game, Free City 2, which will erase all proof of Millie’s stolen IP, as well as wipe out Guy’s world and all of his friends. 

Shot in a variety of resolutions—2.8, 3.4, and 6.5K—this transfer is taken from 6.5K source material and finished at a 2K digital intermediate, not unusual for films with this much CGI work—and there is a ton of CGI, with virtually every image you see within the Free City world somehow digitally manipulated, altered, or enhanced.

Images are beautifully clean, clear, and noise-free. Some shots within Free City—specifically backgrounds where much of the CGI is happening—have occasional softness, almost appearing film-like but without any grain or noise. Closeups really shine with detail, letting you appreciate every line, whisker, and pore in actors’ faces. One scene has a closeup of Buddy’s security badge, and you can see every bump, line, and detail of its texture. Other shots—such as near the end where a crowd of NPCs gathers—just had incredible depth and full-field razor-sharp focus. 

There’s also a nice play between the visuals in the idyllic perfection of Free City and life in the real world. Free City is bright and vibrant—especially once Guy puts on his glasses—and really lets the wider color gamut strut its stuff with things like bright neon signs and lights, or the gleaming reds, yellows, oranges (and even pinks) of the near constant stable of exotic cars racing around the streets, whereas the real world is darker and more sterile. Visually, Free Guy is a treat to look at, with lots of varied environments inside the game—such as Molotov Girl’s base, or Revenjamin Buttons’ (Channing Tatum) lair, or the multi-player hang-out lounge—which all have totally unique looks to them keeping things visually interesting.

With such a fabricated fantasy environment as Free City, you’d expect an active and engaging Dolby Atmos mix, and it delivers. From the very opening, you get the sounds of things swooshing past and overhead, with tons of ambient street sounds—sirens, traffic, gun fire—that fill Free City. This is a place where tanks roll through the streets, helicopters swoop overhead to blow stuff up, and trains suddenly barrel across the street right in front of you, and the Atmos audio puts you right in the middle of it. 

There’s frequent activity in the height channels, and lots of demo-worthy material here to show off your system. During one scene, a game developer engages God-mode, and pillars, beams, and stairs appear and construct from all around and fall in from the ceiling; or there’s the sounds of characters walking around up overhead; and a scene reminiscent of the dream world collapsing in Inception, where buildings are crushing in and collapsing all around. Deep, authoritative bass is frequent, whether from the numerous gun shots—with pistol and shotgun-blast concussions you feel in your chest—explosions, crashes, or the randomly appearing freight train. 

Free Guy definitely doesn’t take itself too seriously and is just a load of fun to sit back and enjoy. Unless you belong to that sub-section that just hates Ryan Reynolds—and, come on, get over Green Lantern already!—this makes a great night at the movies, with a bunch of little Easter eggs that look great up on a large home-cinema screen and reward repeat viewing.