I think I posted a conversation about Tomorrow War because I found a few details about the film interesting and I got more than a few people flipping out at me about it. “THiNC. is all about movies that make you think, and Tomorrow War is not that movie. True enough. But it’s also all about movies that I made ME think. And I enjoyed the fact that Tomorrow War completely rewrote its own 90 minutes of the movie, so I wanted to talk about it. Same thing goes for this movie, Free Guy. It’s not me, recommending Free Guy. But, I was intrigued with a couple interesting elements to the movie. And those few details were interesting enough that I’m here talking about the movie. So, if you come here for the THiNC.ing, and you want something that will fire up your cortex? This isn’t that movie. And if you are here to just obliterate me for talking about a zero IQ movie – just move along. Last I checked? I do this as a hobby and I talk about the movies I want to talk about. SURE, you guys convince me to talk about your movies too. But, dude, just relax. So yeah, Low Key Free Guy Movie Conversation…
And you know what? I had fun with this one.
Also, my GMN (Guy Movie Night) group o’guys finally got back together again (covid-sucks) after like a year and a half to watch this one. I highly recommend you create your own GMNTM movie group. (I literally thought about franchising. Like, creating marketing, franchise standards, selling franchising locations… the works) Five or Ten of us go out to dinner, have a pop-a-shot competition, hand out trophies, watch a movie, and laugh… a lot. You should do it too. Just let me know you are doing it and I’ll add you to the official GMN franchising roster. It’ll be cool. Anyway, movie trailer.
Free Guy Speedo-Rapido Walkthrough
Guy (played by Ryan Reynolds), is an NPC – Non-Player Character. And every day is the same. He wakes, goes and gets the same coffee, heads to the bank, works his mindless job, and then does it again tomorrow. Every day is the same. We learn that the “sun glasses” people get to do all the crazy fun things around town. Bank robberies. Missions. Kidnappings. Skydiving. The works. But the NPC’s are stuck to a life of monotony. They even all have their same catch phrases, limited dialog, for limited interactions with the various real people that move through the game each day. But today, something changed. Guy is wanting to order an espresso. Guy is wanting to change up his catch phrases.
Enter Millie (played by Jodie Comer – the BRILLIANT actor from Killing Eve, which I literally cannot recommend enough. DaNgiT I love that show.) a real life human that knows the ins and outs of this game like no one else. Why? Because she and her coding partner created a game that was purchased by the company that created this particular game. And she’s pretty certain they have illegally inserted their game character AI into this game. So she’s hunting for proof. Yadda, Yadda, Yadda… Guy and Millie team up (Millie thinks Guy is nice because he isn’t a standard gamer troll. Which, let’s be honest, they all are.) Millie’s development partner, Keys (Stranger Things, or something), assists along the way, and they are finally able to figure out that Mouser, the head of the company (played by Utkarsh Ambudkar (Jo Jo Rabbit is brilliant if you haven’t seen it. But I wasn’t much of a fan of his role in this particular movie.)) inserted their game wholesale into Guy’s world. And if Guy can just make it across the bridge that Keys created, he’ll be home free. (Which makes LITERALLY no sense whatsoever.)
In the real world, Millie promises to not sue for his illegal use of their code if he will just leave that one server (did I mention that Mouse was going on an axe rampage in the server room, and only one server still remained? No? Yeah, but it really doesn’t matter, that makes no sense either.) And phew, Guy makes it across! YAY! And it’s there that all the NPC’s are allowed to go and to live their AI-filled best lives, just exploring the island and enjoying themselves. And in the real world… Millie realizes that the guy of her dreams isn’t her AI NPC, but rather the guy that wrote the NPC logic based on himself… Keys. And just like that, they share a kiss and live happily ever after, living in a blissful double helix of bliss and fevered code writing.
Interesting Bits of Free Guy
There are a lot of things going on that made me go, oh, huh. Interesting. I mean, the movie’s call to action to smell the roses… to live meaningfully. Sure. Also, to see the real world things that are right in front of you – IN REAL LIFE. IE, a comment on disconnecting. (In a game about online games, I find this highly ironic. But whatever.)
But the one thing that really hit square in the forehead is the fact that people online, are usually horrific. Or maybe, it would be better said, that, MEN online are horrific. And I’m not going to take any crap on this point. I will F’ing ban you from my website if I get any real crap about this point. I have have more data on this point than 99.9% of humanity. I play video games all the time. My GMN group gets together and games every Tuesday night until like 1 or 2 am.
A few years ago, we were playing a game called Destiny that has a very intriguing game mechanic called raids. Raids require seven people with a high enough light level to send enough damage in order to complete the task. Really doesn’t matter, but the point here is, you need seven, very qualified players in order to get through to the end. Which means, that over, and over, and over again, it required me to go find 3 or 4 qualified players in order to have the light levels necessary in order to complete a raid. You have to know where this is going. So I would put out feelers for 3 or 4 human beings, that do nothing but game all day, in order to work with us to get to the end of this event. My experiences inside of raids with these 3 or 4 other random human beings is literally the worst experiences with humanity I’ve ever endeavored to survive. I can tell you stories about 13-year-olds randomly madlibbing swear words together in order to find the most “interesting” combinations. I’ve been belittled, likened to donkey excrement, and generally dressed down by fifteen year olds. Older people too. Homophobic/transphobic/hate speech that would get you locked up anywhere else? Happens all the time, with regularity in these digital rabbit holes. Racism? Racism that is so racist as to come all the way back around to hating white people. It’s hard to explain the things I’ve seen spewed while “playing” video games.
There is a moment in the film where Millie tries to explain to Guy what she likes about him. That’s he’s funny, sensitive, and not like other guys online. Note: when it becomes clear that a member of your party is a woman – forget about it – the vitriol I described above? – yeah that gets infinitely worse. Not necessarily directed at the woman, but near the woman. Sometimes sexual advances, but generally not. Usually it’s like watching cavemen out ape each other to get the woman’s attention by being the most racist, most sexist, most misogynistic they possibly can be. Yes, this makes no sense. I know this. But at this point, I usually find myself saying, hooray everyone, we found a woman that plays video games IN SPITE of your brilliant idiocies. Can we play now? Personally, I believe that codes of ethics that govern society, should also govern online video game playing. If it’s okay to belittle a Wendy’s employee with sexual/racists/homophobic bon mots… oh it isn’t? Then it also shouldn’t be okay during online games either. Reminds me, I just saw that an anonymous group is unmasking (dos’ing, outting, what have you) racist and ignorant trolls on tik-tok. Similar things should happen in gaming as well. If you’d be embarrassed to have have your kids hear your recent video game rant, then don’t say it. I have mentioned this before in gamer forums? Oh wow… it doesn’t go well at all. “Go home and cry to your @#$@#$ @#$@#$@ Mother!” is generally the response. What’s sad about this is the fact that I am generally not the target of the acidic technicolor vomit – I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be hit square in the face with some of this stuff. The years of latent counseling that will be necessary to clean this mess up individually and also as a society? Man.
Final Thoughts on Free Guy
I found it a good laugh. A laugh that had a few interesting thoughts bouncing around in its head. Sure, some of them are pretty well-trod paths of thought. “Get outside and smell the roses,” “pay attention to the things that really matter”, etc., etc. But it also talked a lot about being decent to one another in spite of the fact that we have technology in between us. It’s like how people are triggered to beat up on people inside mascot outfits. Right? Why is that? Similarly, why are people triggered to beat up on one another when interacting with them online? Why? It makes not a lick of sense. Somebody fix it, would ya? Thanks for that.
Edited by: CY