Free Guy is a 2021 American science fiction action comedy film directed by Shawn Levy and stars Ryan Reynolds, Jodie Comer, Joe Keery, Lil Rel Howery, Utkarsh Ambudkar and Taika Waititi. The film follows the story a bank teller named Guy who finds out that he is actually a non-player character in an open-world video game and becomes the hero of the story, trying to save his friends from being deleted by the game’s creator.

Free City is an online, open-world video game developed by Soonami Games. Its source code was stolen from an unreleased game called Life Itself, developed by Walter “Keys” McKey (Joe Keery) and Millie Rusk (Jodie Comer), and used by Soonami’s head developer Antwan (Taika Waititi) to create Free City. Keys has taken a job at Soonami, while Millie spends time in the game as her avatar Molotov Girl to find evidence of code that she and Keys had written and to prove that they are the rightful owners of the code.

In the game, Guy, a non-player character (NPC), works as a bank teller and spends time with his best friend and co-worker, bank security guard Buddy (Lil Rel Howery), unaware that his world is a video game. One day, he sees Molotov Girl, who is singing the song that he says his dream girl will like and starts to depart from his programming. He finds a pair of sunglasses from player who tries to rob his bank, through which he sees Free City from the player’s head-up display (HUD). Guy speaks to Millie, who thinks he is another player named “Blue Shirt Guy” and not an NPC. She tells him to level to above 100 before she will speak to him again. Keys and his coworker Mouser believe Guy to be a hacker disguised as an NPC and unsuccessfully try to ban him from the game. Rather than leveling up through catastrophic acts, Guy opts to perform good deeds, completing missions within Free City to reach level 102. Through his good deeds, which stand out from the other players, result in “Blue Shirt Guy” becoming a worldwide sensation.

This is a wildly entertaining film and laugh out loud funny at times. Ryan Reynolds is not always the best actor, but as his character, bringing with it humor, action and romance, he was great. Jodie Comer was equally great as both Millie Rusk and Molotov Girl and Joe Keery did a fine job as Keys McKey. Taikia Waititi’s character was a money hungry head of a ginormous video game company who was extremely irritating, mean and selfish, so it was hard to see much outside of that as far as acting goes, because he was so hard to like, the character. Lil Rel Howery was just mediocre at best as Buddy, because he was super cheesy and annoying, like to the point of wanting to jump in the movie and tell him to shut up or stop it.

Other minor characters were super cheesy and immature as well. Channing Tatum’s character, for example, Benjamin Buttons, Keith’s game character said everything Keith said on his headset, making him look like a super goofball, just like Keith, who is an adult living with his mom and playing video games all the time. There is tons of extreme violence that could’ve been toned down and quite a bit of foul language. The effects are outstanding and there is some great old songs in the film as well. A few characters wear the same thing the whole (or most of) the movie, which gets old, but they are from the video game world.

A fun, humorous and action-packed film that is wildly entertaining and funny. It is a bit long at nearly two hours. This may be an action comedy, but it isn’t quite as adult and well done as Reynolds’s Deadpool films. This is like a Ryan Reynolds version of Ready Player One. But it is an enjoyable movie for the most part, despite being lengthy and some of the humor being so silly. The story can be hard for some to follow, being world within a world theme. But what do expect when you try to take a story that’s been done before and add humor and romance? Something that lacks in greatness, that not even special effects can save despite its entertainment factor. 13+ 3/5

Big is a 1988 American fantasy comedy film directed by Penny Marshall, and stars Tom Hanks as adult Josh Baskin, a young boy who makes a wish to be “big” and is then transformed to an adult overnight. The movie also stars Elizabeth Perkins, David Moscow (as young Josh), John Heard and Robert Loggia.

This is a clever, fun-filled, funny and cute film. It has inspired other films with similar plots like 13 Going on 30 and Little, which box office hits, but not nearly as well received as Big. This movie has all the elements that make it such a wonderful film, humor, entertainment, cleverness, romance, drama, emotions and heart. It is one that can be watched over and over without getting old. Tom Hanks is absolutely perfect in this role, as is David Moscow, both adding teenage adorableness, making this movie an enjoyable watch for both teens and adults alike.

Josh discovers as a kid what it’s really like to be an adult, doing it childlike, bringing both advantages and disadvantages. He gets a job as a toy designer, most kid’s dream job, but has trouble with his relationship with Susan Lawrence (Perkins). After telling her that he is really a child, Susan takes it as a fear of commitment and ignores his statement. He lives like the person he really is, a boy in a man’s body, having an apartment filled with kid-like things, from a trampoline, to a pinball machine, to bunk beds. Susan starts to fall for Josh, who shows her how to have more fun in life, when at first she is embarrassed by him and his naivety. He for the first time starts to fall for her too, until he has to go back to being a boy.

This film is laugh out loud funny, heartwarming and heartbreaking. It does have mild sexual innuendos, a few scenes showing drinking, mild violence and quite a bit of harsh language, so not for younger viewers. The storyline of this film is so creative and better than any movie it has inspired, the acting is superb, just overall a wonderful motion picture that lets out your every emotion. Not a dull moment, entertaining for beginning to end. No wonder it was made into a Tony nominated stage musical. A true masterpiece. 13+ 5/5

Poms is a 2019 American comedy film directed by Zara Hayes, starring Diane Keaton, Jacki Weaver, Pam Grier, Celia Weston, Alisha Boe, Phyllis Somerville (in final film role), Charlie Tahan, Bruce McGill and Rhea Perlman. The film is about a group of women from a retirement community who choose to start a cheerleading squad.

Martha, a woman dying of cancer, decides to stop further treatment and moves from her apartment in New York to a retirement community in Georgia called Sun Springs. When Martha arrives at Sun Springs, she meets supervisor Vicki, who gives her a tour of the place, who explains to her that every resident must belong to one of their community clubs.

Martha moves into her new house and meets her new next door neighbor Sheryl. That night Martha isn’t able to sleep due to loud noise from Sheryl’s house, forcing her to call the community’s security chief Carl to stop the noise. Sheryl and her friends sneak into Martha’s house to hide from Carl. where she convinces Martha to allow them to hide out there. From then on. Sheryl wants to be Martha’s friend and invites her to different events, but Martha turns them down.

Sheryl learns that Martha was cheerleader but had to quit before her first game to care for her ill mother. Sheryl says that Martha should try cheering again. After thinking about it, Martha visits Sheryl at the school she’s a substitute teacher at and coaxes Sheryl to help her start up a cheer club in Sun Springs.

After getting Vicki to allow them to start the club and recruit the minimum requirement of eight members, Martha and Sheryl hold tryouts, where six women join. When Vicki tells them they need to find a new place to practice, Sheryl gets them a spot at her school’s pep rally, where they go viral online after a school cheerleader videos them and uploads it to the internet. In the video, one of the Sun Springs cheerleaders injures herself during the routine. After club is ended, Martha and Sheryl decide to join a cheer competition and coaxes the other ladies to get the club back together, despite being the oldest squad at the tournament.

This film proves that it’s never too late to try something new or to start over again, to reach out when you need help and that perfect doesn’t exist and that everyone is special in their own ways. This is a fun, cute, funny, heartwarming and heartbreaking (at times) film. It is one that mostly middle aged and elderly women will enjoy. It is fairly entertaining, but mostly cute and has the feel of most comedy films with elderly women like It’s Complicated and Book Club. It’s not awful, but not outstanding either. Just because a movie has an A-list cast, doesn’t mean it’s supposed to be fantastic.

The messages of this film is what really makes it a good, but it still isn’t great, not even close. The cute story, feels like a retired elderly person wrote it and it was their first time as a screenwriter and they tried their hardest to be Nancy Meyers. It is a fun movie, but the cutesiness is too much and takes away from what could have been a really good motion picture. I didn’t love, nor did I hate it. It is a feel good movie and the acting is really good from all of the main cast members. The soundtrack is great and makes you want to get up and dance, which is only a few things great about this movie.

An enjoyable film, but not award winning fantastic. It has its good and not so good. 13+ 3/5