WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Free Guy, now in theaters
Free Guy largely focuses on the evolution of Guy (Ryan Reynolds), a minor background video game character who slowly gains agency and the ability to evolve as a person within the game world. But as he changes, the rest of the world around him does as well, in some genuinely unexpected and interesting ways. Free Guy has some surprisingly deep ideas about what an evolving artificial intelligence inside a video game would do with free will and agency, such as writing a treatise on toxic masculinity.
Introduced early in Free Guy, Bombshell (Camille Kostek) is initially portrayed as just a piece of arm candy for certain players to win for their adventures. A beautiful blonde woman in a sleek dress, she’s seen multiple times with multiple players early in the film. Like the rest of the inhabitants of Free City — the in-universe video game where most of the film takes place — she’s just a tool to be used and utilized by the gamers who treat their world as a limitless digital playground. But Guy eventually gains the ability to see through the world thanks to taking a pair of glasses from a fallen player. Now able to change who he is and have an effect on the world around him, Guy quickly gains a host of skills and weapons.
Guy later tries — and fails — to convince his best friend Buddy (Lil Rel Howery) to do the same, and in the process, a bank robber arrives on the scene with Bombshell on his arm. But Guy quickly disarms the player and forces them to leave the bank. He then tells Bombshell that she can make her own decisions, and she chooses her own life. Like with some other members of the community, Bombshell actually responds well to this encouragement. She reveals she would actually rather not be involved with any man at all, with Guy agreeing that most of them are awful, and decides to do something else with her life.
Bombshell’s decision to grow as her own person is treated as a minor but important moment of evolution for Free City, which increasingly shows signs of evolution in a manner that’s wholly similar to actual genuine artificial intelligence developing sentience. Keys (Joe Keery), whose designs for a video game that could grow and learn and adapt were stolen and used for Free City, is shocked to discover among the various other changes to the programing includes Bombshell apparently writing a dissertation on toxic masculinity within her world. Keys even apparently read it, and, while he admits it can be a bit preachy in places, it’s remarkably interesting and engaging.
It’s a minor gag in the overall film, but it’s also potentially one of the most interesting single ideas the film ever engages in. The concept of video game characters — specifically the NPCs created to exist on the sidelines of whatever adventures the players end up on — actually analyzing what they experience and see is a fascinating one. Coupled with the general conceptions of AI growing and evolving not as some part of a defense mechanism but as part of a global playground, it suggests a surprisingly in-depth look into modern men and how they take out their aggressions in a world of no consequence. Considering the controversies that still plague the gaming industry over sexism and misogyny, that suggests a very compelling concept from a unique perspective.
The fact that the world of Free Guy is capable of such deep thought is one of the biggest indicators that this is genuine artificial intelligence coming to life, and that’s fascinating on so many levels. It’s interesting to see her observations from the inside out, and how they line up with real-world psychology. Just the very conception of a computer program trying to understand the human psyche, in general, is a compelling idea and adds to the depth of a surprisingly heady comedy blockbuster.
To see how Bombshell gains her agency, Free Guy is in theaters now.
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