Ever wondered what it would be like to be an NPC in a OW-FR-MMORPG - or are you just wondering WTF that means? Be honest, did you think I just hit the keyboard with my head a few times and made a random acronym?
Guy (Ryan Reynolds) is a none-playable-character (NPC) in open world (OW) free-roaming (FR) massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). That basically means he's a computer character in a game where real people can log in and pretty much do anything they want (think Grand Theft Auto or Fortnight). Guy is happy in his existence living in Free City and working as a bank teller. He goes about his daily life without many dramas and issues but wishing he could be one of the cool people that all seem to wear sunglasses. One day Guy gets his wish and learns the truth about his existence and meets the woman of his dreams, Molotov Girl, a.k.a. Millie (Jodie Comer). She blows his mind with stories about what's really going on, and from then on, nothing is the same for poor Guy, especially with the games head-developer Antwan (Taika Waititi) hunting him.
Do you need to be a gamer to enjoy this movie? Well, no, you really don't. This is really just a fantasy film with a modern twist. If you've enjoyed ghosts and goblins, or wizards and unicorns before, then you should be fine with this. Being a gamer gives you an insider knowledge and grants you access to some of the things that happen or are hinted at, but you can easily watch this film without knowing because it's either explained in the film or isn't a massive dealbreaker for enjoyment. If you strip away all the guns and fast cars from the film, it really comes down to an old-fashioned formula; Boy finds dream girl and tries to impress her - Something bad happens - They come together to fight the bad thing and save the world.
Ryan Reynold and Jodie Comer take up the lead roles of the protagonists Guy and Millie/Molotov Girl, with Taika Waititi playing the main antagonistic, evil, and greedy game developer Antwan. Their performances are good, and I really enjoyed the level of humour being brought. It wasn't just the humour though, there were some really heartfelt moments in the film too, especially with the feeling of being trapped and totally out of place that Guy experiences, much akin to "The Truman Show". I'm not going to suggest for one minute that the human drama is deep and compelling like a "Forrest Gump" or "Shawshank Redemption" because it's more throwaway and humour with Reynold giving more of a "Deadpool" level of performance, just without the costume and bloodshed. Also appearing are Joe Keery, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Lil Rel Howery, Channing Tatum and whole host of others actors who had decent performances and fitted their roles really well.
There is a lot of bonkers in the film, some of which probably doesn't make much sense, but that's what modern culture feels like to me sometimes. I grew up playing video games as a child of the 1980's and since then the landscape has changed. These days it's easy to feel out of place with things like TikTok, Twitch, random trends, throwaway streaming clips, and cheap games that don't make much sense (I think this is what it's like to be getting old). With these kind of things the film is homage and parody and pays tribute to modern gaming and modern culture (which sadly I might not be part of anymore!). Sure, there are things that I thought were dumb or didn't get, but the film was still palatable and enjoyable. It looked good, it was loud, it was engaging - it was entertaining and that's what counts really. It's almost like the director and writers (Shawn Levy, Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn) picked some films and games off a shelf and put them in a blender to produce this. I saw "Grand Theft Auto", "Fortnight", Modern Warfare", "Need for Speed", "The Truman Show", "The Lego Movie", "Matrix", "Ready Player One", "Star Wars", "They Live" ... absolutely loads. In fact, I saw nods, references and heard dialogue from a whole lot more than I'm not going to name here - I didn't get them all, but I might get ones that you didn't. It's just there's too much to list on a quick blog like this.
All in all, I enjoyed the film. I though the cast were all great and the story was fun. This was a nice change from some of the more serious films I've watched recently. I'd definitely watch this again soon, but first I'm going to try and get my head around Twottering and StikStocking :D.
Guy (Ryan Reynolds) is a none-playable-character (NPC) in open world (OW) free-roaming (FR) massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). That basically means he's a computer character in a game where real people can log in and pretty much do anything they want (think Grand Theft Auto or Fortnight). Guy is happy in his existence living in Free City and working as a bank teller. He goes about his daily life without many dramas and issues but wishing he could be one of the cool people that all seem to wear sunglasses. One day Guy gets his wish and learns the truth about his existence and meets the woman of his dreams, Molotov Girl, a.k.a. Millie (Jodie Comer). She blows his mind with stories about what's really going on, and from then on, nothing is the same for poor Guy, especially with the games head-developer Antwan (Taika Waititi) hunting him.
Do you need to be a gamer to enjoy this movie? Well, no, you really don't. This is really just a fantasy film with a modern twist. If you've enjoyed ghosts and goblins, or wizards and unicorns before, then you should be fine with this. Being a gamer gives you an insider knowledge and grants you access to some of the things that happen or are hinted at, but you can easily watch this film without knowing because it's either explained in the film or isn't a massive dealbreaker for enjoyment. If you strip away all the guns and fast cars from the film, it really comes down to an old-fashioned formula; Boy finds dream girl and tries to impress her - Something bad happens - They come together to fight the bad thing and save the world.
Ryan Reynold and Jodie Comer take up the lead roles of the protagonists Guy and Millie/Molotov Girl, with Taika Waititi playing the main antagonistic, evil, and greedy game developer Antwan. Their performances are good, and I really enjoyed the level of humour being brought. It wasn't just the humour though, there were some really heartfelt moments in the film too, especially with the feeling of being trapped and totally out of place that Guy experiences, much akin to "The Truman Show". I'm not going to suggest for one minute that the human drama is deep and compelling like a "Forrest Gump" or "Shawshank Redemption" because it's more throwaway and humour with Reynold giving more of a "Deadpool" level of performance, just without the costume and bloodshed. Also appearing are Joe Keery, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Lil Rel Howery, Channing Tatum and whole host of others actors who had decent performances and fitted their roles really well.
There is a lot of bonkers in the film, some of which probably doesn't make much sense, but that's what modern culture feels like to me sometimes. I grew up playing video games as a child of the 1980's and since then the landscape has changed. These days it's easy to feel out of place with things like TikTok, Twitch, random trends, throwaway streaming clips, and cheap games that don't make much sense (I think this is what it's like to be getting old). With these kind of things the film is homage and parody and pays tribute to modern gaming and modern culture (which sadly I might not be part of anymore!). Sure, there are things that I thought were dumb or didn't get, but the film was still palatable and enjoyable. It looked good, it was loud, it was engaging - it was entertaining and that's what counts really. It's almost like the director and writers (Shawn Levy, Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn) picked some films and games off a shelf and put them in a blender to produce this. I saw "Grand Theft Auto", "Fortnight", Modern Warfare", "Need for Speed", "The Truman Show", "The Lego Movie", "Matrix", "Ready Player One", "Star Wars", "They Live" ... absolutely loads. In fact, I saw nods, references and heard dialogue from a whole lot more than I'm not going to name here - I didn't get them all, but I might get ones that you didn't. It's just there's too much to list on a quick blog like this.
All in all, I enjoyed the film. I though the cast were all great and the story was fun. This was a nice change from some of the more serious films I've watched recently. I'd definitely watch this again soon, but first I'm going to try and get my head around Twottering and StikStocking :D.