Free Guy (2021)

Another Ryan Reynolds comedy, another film benefiting from his voiceover narration (which seems to be the best way to utilise his onscreen presence), and another film allowing him to retain his current status as someone we can all collectively love for a variety of reasons, Free Guy also stands out from the crowd nowadays, much like the worthwhile Ted Lasso, by simply celebrating the benefits of being good. It celebrates the ability to be a nice person, even as the world around you tries to make you feel like a weakling for showing even a hint of kindness at times.

Reynolds plays Guy, a NPC in a videogame that doesn’t feel a million miles removed from Grand Theft Auto. The videogame may have been built using code created by Millie (Jodie Comer) and Keys (Joe Keery), and Millie spends as much time as possible within the game trying to find any sign of their old code, in an attempt to sue the rich and powerful head of Soonami Studios, Antwan. Guy has spent a lot of time just enjoying his days, working in a bank that is often robbed, and enjoying the company of his best friend, Buddy (Lil Rel Howery), but spying Millie AKA the woman he loves spurs him to take on a very different persona. Guy starts to level up, and he does it by doing good deeds, as opposed to the approach of robbing and shooting stuff that most players opt for.

Written by Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn (a great mix of family-friendly tone from the former throughout and the layered, referential, work that the latter has done a few times before), a lot of people have been busy finding comparisons between this movie and the likes of TRON and Ready Player One. While I can see those comparisons, Free Guy is actually more of a mix of The LEGO Movie and Wreck-It Ralph, with a hint of They Live in there (Guy sees the missions and extras around him when he puts on sunglasses that are usually only worn by player characters).

Director Shawn Levy is a dependable pair of hands, working with a team to create an interpretation of an online gaming world that crams in plenty of fun, in terms of the characters, the dialogue, and overall design of every scene. This is a film that will reward a number of repeat viewings, and Levy maintains a nice balance between the deceptively simple heart of the whole thing and the cavalcade of wonderful details throughout.

Reynolds is excellent in the lead role, very likeable and dialling down his standard smart-ass sassiness. Comer pairs up with him perfectly, being a skilled and tough woman always moving forward with a very specific aim. The chemistry between the two leads is almost perfect, all the way to a finale that manages to pull off what I thought was going to be the biggest hurdle, a truly satisfying ending. Keery gives good support, eventually helping Comer when he sees her getting tantalisingly close to finding the code, and Utkarsh Ambudkar is a lot of fun as Kerry’s colleague/friend who keeps trying to advise him to not rock the boat. Howery is wonderfully exuberant and sweet, Channing Tatum has a fun cameo role (and there are a few others to keep your eyes/ears peeled for), and Waititi seems to relish playing his douchebag character at a level of maximum douchebaggery.

The only thing working against Free Guy is a sense of familiarity as the videogame tropes are set up and played around with. But that’s not enough to drag it down much. As things stand, this is so far the best big cinema release of 2021, and I recommend it to pretty much everyone, but especially those who enjoy the two main animated movies that I mentioned earlier.

9/10

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Godmothered (2020)

Crashing through from the fairytale world to the harsher realities of our own world is a seam that has been mined by Disney before, most notably with the very enjoyable Enchanted. And if you liked that movie then you should like this one. It's very similar.

Jillian Bell plays Eleanor, a fairy godmother in her training years. Unfortunately, by the time/if she ever qualifies, it may all be too late. People don't seem to need fairy godmothers any more. Nobody is getting their "happy ever after". Eleanor decides to change things by making things right for a young girl named Mackenzie, after finding her letter in the archives. That letter, however, was written some time ago, and Mackenzie (Isla Fisher) is now a stressed-out single mother, working for a news station that seems determined to gain ratings by focusing on negative stories and fear-mongering. Mackenzie seems to have accepted that she's not going to have a "happy ever after", but she may also be holding back her daughters, Mia (Willa Skye) and Jane (Jillian Shea Spaeder).

Your enjoyment of Godmothered will depend on a number of factors, not least of which is how much you warm to Jillian Bell in her main role. I tend to find Bell very hit and miss, depending on how irritating her character is supposed to be (and she tends to be given irritating characters in many of her films), but she's a lot of fun as the trainee with more enthusiasm than natural talent, doing her best to get results without the full skillset that some others have. You also have to accept the predictability of it all, the weak mix of characters, and the sweetness of the big main lesson. Having said that, you usually have to accept those things with most Disney movies, so it's no major inconvenience if you know the kind of film you're about to watch.

Although the script by Kari Granlund and Melissa Stack doesn't take any chances, director Sharon Maguire keeps everything moving along nicely enough, and staves off boredom with some smaller-scale set-pieces (be it Mackenzie being inconvenienced by a huge ballgown that has magically appeared on her or a race-against-the-clock finale that relies on Eleanor finally perfecting one or two of the traditional spells).

Bell and Fisher have fun together, Spaeder and Skye are just fine, Santiago Cabrera is a prospective "prince", literally named Hugh Prince, and Utkarsh Ambudkar provides some laughs as the boss who thinks bad news = ratings. June Squibb is a delight as Agnes, the fairy godmother who narrates the tale, and Jane Curtin is the strict head of the fairy godmothers who ends up racing to stop Eleanor making what she assumes will be a big mess of things.

Light and enjoyable from start to finish, the biggest thing going against Godmothered is that, while it wanders through some very similar terrain, it isn't Enchanted. That's no reason to criticise this movie too harshly though. One Disney movie being very similar to another Disney movie is hardly anything new. It's often part of the appeal.

6/10

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Prime Time: Brittany Runs A Marathon (2019)

The feature debut from writer-director Paul Downs Colaizzo, I would advise everyone against seeking out Brittany Runs A Marathon if they are seeking the big laughs and hilarity mentioned in some of the quotes used to sell it. It's not that funny. I'm not saying this in a dismissive way. It never really feels as if it's meant to be funny, beyond the obvious amusement to be had as viewers watch Brittany begin her journey with no small amount of anger and frustration.

Jillian Bell is Brittany, a woman living in New York who has settled into a pattern of drinking and having fun with her friends, not looking after herself too well, and becoming slightly overweight. This isn't a problem for Brittany, at least she doesn't think of it as a problem until a doctor tells her that she should aim to lose weight and work on some healthier lifestyle choices. That starts her thinking about just what her main role in life is. And it leads to her eventually joining a running club that she is invited to by her neighbour, Catherine (Michaela Watkins). She also befriends a fellow runner, Seth (Micah Stock), and gets a dog/house-sitting job, where she meets a strange free-spirited man named Jern (Utkarsh Ambudkar). All of those people, plus her brother-in-law (Demetrius, played by Lil Rel Howery), help Brittany to figure out her way forward through life. But the road ahead won't be easy, and won't always necessarily be without setbacks.

Inspired by a real person (Brittany O'Neill) who was a roommate of the writer-director (maybe still is, for all I know), Brittany Runs A Marathon works as well as it does because it feels quite honest when it counts most. I put off watching this for some time because I assumed it was going to be a gender-switched version of Run, Fat Boy, Run. That's simply not the case. Brittany setting her sights on a marathon goal is just one aspect of the way she starts to recalibrate her vision, and her self-image. The marathon is a huge deal, I'm not going to deny that, but it's also insignificant in comparison to what else Brittany starts to work on while getting herself in the kind of condition required to run such an event.

Bell gives a very good performance in the lead role, starting off with a performance similar to many others that she's given us before showing the slipping of the mask and fighting constantly against her guard being let down. Watkins and Stock lend her strong support, paralleling the characters they play in the movie. Ambudkar comes along at just the right time, livening up the film when it needs a small boost, and Howery is a shining beacon of goodness whenever he's onscreen (well . . . his character is, and he plays him well). It's also worth mentioning Alice Lee, who plays Gretchen, the kind of friend you only ever want as a friend when you don't realise that you're worth better friends. Lee is suitably inconsiderate and awful.

Fair play to Colaizzo for not taking the easy option here, as this could have just been a straightforward comedy vehicle for Bell. I'm sure that would have worked just as well for many people, but this way of treating the material allows for some more thought-provoking moments, which are more of a surprise after those opening scenes that help to welcome you into the story with some laughs. Because of that important decision, you may not get quite what you wanted from this, but you may get something even better.

7/10

Game Over, Man! (2018)

Oh boy. There's a fun idea at the heart of Game Over, Man! but it's one that is constantly being buried under a mountain of atrociousness.

Adam Devine, Anders Holm, and Blake Anderson star as Alexxx, Darren, and Joel, three male workers in the housekeeping department of some big hotel building. They're terrible at their job, and not in an amusing way. They're just so bad that you have to wonder how they have stayed in employment for more than half a day. Always looking for the chance to sell one of their big (and terrible) ideas to someone, the boys get themselves very excited when they know that their building is about to host a party for an ultra-rich celeb named Bey (Utkarsh Ambudkar). Unfortunately, there's one man (Jamie Demetriou) trying to keep unwanted members of the public away from Bae. And there are a bunch of criminals (led by Neal McDonough) about to crash the party and extort money from Bae, which gives our hapless lead characters the chance to become heroes.

If you like jokes about sperm, more gratuitous penis shots than any other comedy, even more gratuitous cameos, and a very open-minded approach to a wide variety of sexual preferences that would feel admirably progressive if every main instance of it mattering wasn't being used as a plot device, or for an easy joke, then this is the film for you.

I like Devine, and I like his usual douchebag persona, so I enjoyed some of his work here. I can't say the same about Holm (who also wrote the terrible script) and Anderson. There are hardly any other performers that I DID enjoy, sadly, with the exceptions of Demetriou, McDonough, and Rhona Mitra, and I just enjoyed Mitra because I hadn't seen her in anything for a while. Chloe Bridges tries hard, but isn't given enough to do, and Daniel Stern is stuck with the kind of role that a decade or so ago would have gone to someone like Chris Elliott.

Director Kyle Newacheck does an acceptable job, I'll grudgingly admit, with a decent way of shooting the action moments and the gags. It's that script, always that script, that undermines everything, feeling very much like something written by a bunch of drunk friends on a big night out who decided that they would very much like to star in an action comedy, but with as many unfunny jokes crammed in there as possible. I am sure that some will find the content here tasteless, while just as many others will find it hilarious. I just think it was all a bit too juvenile and didn't work with the action movie template.

This is advertised as being from the people who brought you Workaholics. Well, all I can say is that I won't be rushing to check out Workaholics. I also can't believe we get something like this while we are still deprived of a film version of One Fine Day In The Middle Of The Night. Netflix (because, yes, this is another one from them), start adapting Christopher Brookmyre works and you may regain some goodwill after recent mis-steps.

3/10

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