Free Guy

Do you know what the acronym NPC stands for? If so, you’re in the target demographic for Free Guy, a high-energy geek wish-fulfillment fantasy about a rogue video-game background character changing his destiny.

For non-gamers not interested in all the coder terminology and talk of IP ownership, you still get a Ryan Reynolds comedy with some amusing one-liners and sight gags — even if its zero-to-hero journey doesn’t really connect on a more human level.

Reynolds plays Guy, a “non-playable character” in Free City who’s oblivious to the fact that his entire daily routine, which leads to him becoming a helpless pawn in a bank robbery, is part of an open-world game. Guy and his security-guard buddy (Lil Rel Howery) know enough to stay away from the “sunglasses people” who have special powers to control their circumstances.

But when an alluring woman (Jodie Comer) with shades catches Guy’s attention one day, his impulsive decision to approach her winds up giving him powers he never knew possible. Gamers worldwide and the game’s unstable corporate creator (Taika Waititi) are unsure how to deal with Guy’s sudden prominence.

Is he a glitch? A hacker’s avatar? An algorithm? Does it even matter? Eventually, Guy’s self-discovery triggers an existential crisis, and thus a quest to free his oppressed background colleagues from their predetermined mundanity, even if he must break the game to do so.

Reynolds enthusiastically lands most of the gags while making the most of Guy’s innocent charm. Otherwise, besides a few scene-stealing cameos, character depth gets shoved aside in favor of elaborate set pieces. But what do you expect from a movie set almost entirely inside of a game?

Immersing us in the film’s inventive virtual world, director Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum) keeps the pace lively even while the convoluted screenplay bogs down in the particulars of gameplay, and the predictable payoff doesn’t make advancing to the bonus level all that worthwhile. Still, it features some clever twists along the way as it satirizes the tendency for modern role-playing games to rely on random violence and destruction.

While the premise sounds like a dumbed-down version of The Truman Show for basement dwellers, the film’s refusal to take itself too seriously plays to its benefit. Despite making up many of the rules as it goes along, Free Guy winds up a winner.

Rated PG-13, 115 minutes.