LOVE VIRTUALLY (FREE GUY)

It all began with 'Tron'.

Steven Lisberger's 1982 cult Disney sci-fi family adventure with Jeff Bridges was the first to imagine a world inside a video game.

It has also been credited by John Lasseter with inspiring the use of computer animation in films.

"Without 'Tron,' there would be no 'Toy Story'," he declared.

Since then, studios have either tried to cash in on popular video game franchises or recreated the dynamics or feel of gaming.

28 years ago Disney's Buena Vista Pictures was the first to try to turn a popular computer game into box office gold, with a movie based on Nintendo's 'Super Mario Bros'.

Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel's movie, with Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo as the Italian American plumbers Mario and Luigi flopped spectacularly, with its box office falling short of its $45 million budget.

It has since emerged as a cult film and in the past week an animated feature of the game has been announced with Chris Pratt and Charlie Day as Mario and Luigi, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Seth Rogan as Donkey Kong and Jack Black as Bowser.

Other games like 'Mortal Kombat,' 'Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,' 'Resident Evil,' 'Assassin's Creed' and 'Sonic the Hedgehog' have had the big screen treatment too to varying degrees of success.

Movies like Tom Tykwer's 1998 German classic 'Run Lola Run' have successfully riffed on the regenerative traits of video games.

David Cronenberg's 'eXistenZ' in 1999, Edgar Wright's 2010 action romcom 'Scott Pilgrim versus The World,' and the 2017 combo of Jake Kasdan's 'Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle' and Steven Spielberg's Easter Egg laden 'Ready Player One' also took video game characteristics and pitched themselves at an audience steeped in gaming.

Now Shawn Levy has entered the arena with a story that also riffs on the Hollywood formula of real people in fictional worlds.

'Free Guy' is reminiscent of Woody Allen's 'The Purple Rose of Cairo,' John McTiernan's 'The Last Action Hero,' Harold Ramis' 'Groundhog Day,' the Wachowskis' 'The Matrix,' Peter Weir's 'The Truman Show' and Phil Lord and Chris Miller's 'The Lego Movie.'

Ryan Reynolds plays Guy, an incidental character in a popular, violent online game, Free City where avatars are allowed to wreak havoc on the streets.

It is not unusual for Guy and his best friend, Lil Rey Howery's Buddy to walk down the street clutching their awesome cup of coffee with cream and two sugars while gun battles rage around them and robberies take place.

However because of the way they are programmed, they don't see this as abnormal.

The bank where Guy works as a teller and Buddy as a security guard is robbed several times every day by avatars controlled by gamers in the real world.

And while the mayhem unfolds around them, Guy and Buddy just make plans to grab beers after work.

Every day is the same until one day Guy catches sight of Jodie Comer's smooth gun toting avatar known as Molotov Girl.

Immediately smitten, he walks out of the bank and tries to catch her eye.

At first Molotov Girl is taken aback that Guy has broken out of his programmed character to engage her.

But following her, he steps onto a train track and is hit by a speeding train, only to wake up in his apartment and restart his morning routine of talking to and feeding his goldfish, deciding which neatly pressed blue short sleeved shirt and chinos to wear.

Molotov Girl is actually the avatar of Jodie Comer's games designer Millie Rusk who is playing Free City to prove its obnoxious creator, Taikia Waititi's Antwan has ripped off her co-design of another game 'Life Itself'.

Millie and Joe Keery's fellow designer Walter "Keys" McKey had originally pitched the much kinder, gentler 'Life Itself' to Antwan.

While Keys has ended up working for Antwan, Millie has not and believes he has a hidden code that they created for their groundbreaking unreleased game which features artificially intelligent characters.

When Guy starts to act out of character in 'Free City', Millie and Keys realise he is the embodiment of the AI code they created.

However. Guy also starts to catch gamers' attention by only killing violent avatars and promoting a kinder, gentler Free City.

Will he be able to help Millie/Molotov Girl find the code they believe is concealed in the game?

And how long will it be before Antwan realises what they are up to and how will he respond?

Written by Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn, 'Free Guy' zips along with a lot of tongue in cheek energy, relying heavily on its principal actors' charisma.

Packed full of gaming references, it mimics 'Sim City,' 'Fortnite' and 'Grand Theft Auto' and features cameo appearances by well known figures from that world like Pokimane, Ninja, Jackscepticeye, DanTDM and LazarBeam who comment on the rising influence of Guy in the Free City game on their YouTube channels.

'Captain America' star Chris Evans, 'Good Morning America' host Lara Spencer and the late Alex Trebeck of 'Jeopardy' fame also appear, while Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Tina Fey, Hugh Jackman and John Krasinski voice some of the avatars who we see in the film.

Levy delivers a hi-tech comedy action movie that is simply a lot of fun and bounces along like 'The Lego Movie'.

He and his cast have created the freshest live action, non sequel blockbuster since James Gunn's 'Guardians of the Galaxy' exploded onto the screen.

And while it has already raced to around $320 million box office receipts internationally, you cannot help feeling that in normal, non-Covid times it could have made even more by now.

Reynolds, who can be hit and miss as a lead man, is perfectly suited to the role of the naive, sunny optimist Guy - part Jeff Daniels in 'The Purple Rose of Cairo,' part 'Forrest Gump' and Owen from 'The Lego Movie' and part Truman from 'The Truman Show'.

However Comer is more than his match - bringing a badass Lara Croft sensibility as Molotov Girl but a sweet natured geeky charm to Millie.

In fact, she makes a great case for a female 007 and this film will cement her growing star power on the back of 'Killing Eve'.

Keery turns in his best big screen performance to date, very much going full metal geek as Keys.

Waititi also relishes the opportunity to play an outlandish villain in a Robert Downey Jr style.

The four principals are ably supported by Lil Rey Howery, Utkarsh Ambudkar as Keys' work colleague Mouse, Britne Oldford as a Free City barista and Camille Kostek as a blonde bombshell in the game who usually hangs out with gun toting avatars but is inspired to pursue a better life by Guy.

Channing Tatum also pops up in a small role as another avatar, Revenjamin Buttons, controlled by Matty Cardapome's gamer Keith, who is a little in awe of Guy.

'Free Guy' is a well executed, feelgood film and is mostly good clean, family fun.

Crammed full of ideas and knowing references, Levy does an excellent job ensuring the story doesn't lose the run of itself.

A sequel will surely follow but it will take considerable skill recreating it's undoubted magic.

('Free Guy' was released on UK and Irish cinemas on August 13, 2021 and was made available for streaming on Disney+ on October 1, 2021)