Free Guy review: Finally, an authentic gaming film—and it’s fun, not perfect

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  Guy (Ryan Reynolds) discovers that things inside his world look a lot different when you have special sunglasses. [credit:
  20th Century Studios
  ]

In video games and computer graphics, the concept of the “uncanny valley” can emerge once something approaches visual realism. The more a virtual character looks like a human, the more our brains squarely focus on the CGI inaccuracies.

I kept thinking about this concept after seeing Free Guy, a new film from the combined Disney-Fox borg that takes gaming authenticity very seriously. But it didn’t feel that way because the movie, starring Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool) and Taika Waititi (What We Do in the Shadows), resembles the CGI tragedy of 1999’s Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

Rather, Free Guy‘s insistence on gaming-universe authenticity, which it takes damned seriously, means it approaches a conceptual uncanny valley. How much that’ll annoy you is arguably the biggest question mark attached to an otherwise solid, fun, and family-friendly action flick.