“Free Guy” (M) ****

I WAS the only grown-up watching “Free Guy”, director Shawn Levy’s subtle confrontation with the world of video gaming. After it finished, I spoke with some adolescents who also watched it.

They got their buzz from the images in the film’s imaginary technology content which, when you look more closely, aren’t as spectacular or as original as might at first glance seem. 

Video games as the topic for an expensive-looking, dramatically unsubtle, thud-and-blunder movie? You bet. The youngsters’ comments missed its deeper message.

Ryan Reynolds plays mild-mannered bank-teller Guy for whom life is positive, cheerful but pretty mundane right down to his pale-blue shirts. But when Molotovgirl (Jodie Comer) shows up delivering video-game-like violence, love strikes him. Guy soon learns that he has become a non-playing character in a video game, “Free City”. And Molotovgirl is really Millie who looks cute and behaves intelligently.

At Soonami Corporation, Keys (Joe Keery) and Mouser (Utkarsh Ambudkar) are developing the next iteration of the company’s best-selling game. Soonami mogul Antwan wants them to go faster – he needs more billions to enjoy.

These few characters head a cast of 106 actors, mostly credited, some not, delivering action subtly underlining the writer’s intention. It’s been a long time since I watched a big-budget-actioner-fantasy American movie almost identical with every other such except for the window-dressing created to paint it to the screen. I figure that people who enjoy such movies already know what’s going to happen.

“Free Guy” is an out-and-out satire on modern technology. Its video-game characters almost universally go about killing each other. Who kills most wins. Writer Matt Lieberman chose his target well. How’s about a game in which the hero is friendly, kind and helpful and might even convert bad guys into good guys? 

NZ filmmaker/actor Taika Waititi plays Antwan. Look harder at Antwan. I saw Donald Trump. 

The screenplay’s phonetic spelling of characters’ names, most notably “Soonami” and “Antwan”, looked like a shot at education levels for young folk who in later life might regret never having lernd to spell correctly.

At Dendy and Palace Electric