Let's get one thing straight. My mom is the best mom. You might think your mom is the best mom, but I'm sorry you're wrong. My mom is the best mom. For example, my mom let me take a day off so we could go to my local game store during opening hours to get me in line to buy Grand Theft Auto III for PlayStation 2. I was clearly underage. She's the best mom ever, and that's just one of the reasons. But my mother is not what one would consider a "player." She used to call my Game Boy the Game Child and still needs help finding her TV remote. So he was more than amused, if not shocked, to discover that he had stumbled across a screening of Free Guy, Ryan Reynolds' new movie about a non-playable game character who realizes he's part of a simulation. Not only that, she had been following her 80-year-old sister of hers, who is much more clueless, bless her heart, when it comes to anything related to technology. How could a movie so reliant on video game jokes, tech tropes, and meme culture fall into the hands of someone who still considers her vinyl collection (perhaps rightly) to be the zenith of technological achievement? ? Would you find it funny? Would she get it? Would that inspire her to start in the game or leave her even more perplexed by all the culture of hers? With a very specific audience apparently in mind, would my mom find something that spoke to her in Free Guy? Beyond the torn stars, of course. Let's find out. Take some notes, Ryan Reynolds: Here's Mom Lynch's very honest and reasonably confusing review of Free Guy, in Q&A format.
Free Guy: The Mom Lynch Review
Okay, now you're in the archive, mom. So everything you say will go to the site. So don't swear.
So how did you go to see Free Guy, with Ryan Reynolds?
I wanted to see people do nothing, but Sheila hasn't seen the show, and I have, so she wouldn't have gotten it either. And that may not have been her thing, she is 80 years old. So she was looking for something that wasn't a kids' movie, like Croods or whatever it's called, and there were all those kinds of movies out there. And I thought, I don't want to watch a Disney movie, you know? And all those Marvel movies, I haven't followed them since like the 1980s Superman, something like that. Do you know what I mean? You know, all of that and even that Superman just doesn't make sense to me, you know?
Do you and Sheila go to the movies a lot together?
The Strange Movie: If Someone Happens. We went to see... what was that about Ziwigger, that girl? Bridget's baby. Judy Garland. You know all this. You know I went to see Elton John, but not with Sheila, and Bohemian Rhapsody like that. So I was looking for something light. I don't like, you know, I don't like to kill, horror movies, so they come out.
![Imágenes de la película Free Guy]()
(Image credit: 20th Century Studios)
What do you and Sheila like to go see?
Sheila likes comedy, probably. I think the last movie we saw before lockdown was Laurel and Hardy. I never thought I'd cry for Laurel and Hardy, but I almost cried, I wouldn't let Sheila see me at the end. So this movie, I see it on the side of a bus, Free Guy, right? And I thought, “I wonder what Free Guy is? Probably one of those kids movies. And then I went to the Genesis Cinema site. And I thought "Oh, that sounds like the Truman story, or Groundhog Day. You know when someone gets stuck on something and they don't know it's there and I thought that sounded good to me.
Well, before continuing, what is your experience with video games?
Nothing!
Do you remember the last video game you played?
Probably before the millennium. A car set that I made for about five minutes that someone got for Christmas and let me take a little ride. That was it. A red car!
I also made you endure virtual reality...
Oh yes yes. It was not my fault. I wouldn't have done it if I thought I was going to fall off a tower or that sharks were going to catch me.
But you're not that comfortable with the game, are you?
No, I don't know anything at all. I am still the Commodore 64 and even the one I did not participate in. Your father put this with Uncle Alan, and it was just a ping-pong ball going back and forth or a little King Kong on top of a building, and you put a little plane around it and you had to try and shoot it. of the building. It was probably the last game I played properly.
So what is your current experience with the game? Is it through your grandchildren?
I don't even care what they're doing to be honest! I met Lucas and Joseph playing a game of soccer. And, okay, my eyes are bad, but I looked and thought "are there real men running around?" But I! Sheila has even less knowledge than me. she is not at all
![Imágenes de la película Free Guy]()
(Image credit: 20th Century Studios)
Without the spoiler mom, tell me what Free Guy is about, after you've seen it.
I would say, like I said, at first I compared it to Groundhog Day because, I have to say this, at first there are things that happen to him that happen again. Do you know what I mean? And if it was going to be in this direction. I don't know where I thought I was going with this. And he had to... he was like Sheila's interpreter. I had to try to tell Sheila what she thought she was, and at first I found that I didn't know what was going on. In other words, it wasn't complicated. It got a little technical, sort of, when they tried to bring him in, what can I say... out of the game?
All right, let me stop you. What is cinema By the way?
Well, it took me a while, but basically there's a little bit of… there's also a little love story. Correct?
If I said to you: “Say the phrase“ Free Guy is about… ”, what would you say?
Free Guy is in... Well, Free Guy is about to find out if artificial intelligence is possible.
Correct...
... That is to say that for someone who doesn't play anything, it takes a bit of time to get the idea. Anyone your age or younger would be totally into it, you know?
So what did you like the most?
I wanted it to be a bit more comedy, but I think maybe I missed some jokes, because I heard some people laugh, but I never laughed! I did not know the references.
Did you feel like you were falling behind by not knowing some of the gaming credentials the movie has?
Not entirely because, without telling you the story, there were like the girl and the boy who were part of the creation of the game, they give you little references that people like me could feel. Look, this was by no means complicated. It was just that it wasn't the movie I thought I was going to see. Lots of action, lots of action.
So tell me if possible, without spoiling the movie, three moments that you really enjoyed.
Three moments that I enjoyed… there is a role in that, the girl does a lot of action. He's like, what can I say, things happen to him like... it wasn't a laugh for me, it wasn't a laugh out loud, and I didn't hear a lot of people laugh there. I thought I was going to see a comedy. It was a comedy, don't get me wrong, when you see it you'll know what I mean. It was a comedy, but there was a bit of what they needed to get in the game and get something back. And that's when I thought "...Does Sheila know what's going on here?" "Do you know? She didn't even know.
What has Sheila's response been all this time?
...Nothing? Nothing! She went several times "Ohhh!" Listen, don't get me wrong, it wasn't complicated and it wasn't complicated to follow, you just sat back and watched all the action. I have it. Look, it all comes down to a situation with this military operation between these players to get him out of there, and I don't want to mess it up, see? A little love story.
Okay, was there a computer game that...
Oh, his friend was funny. He had a friend, this security guard who worked with him at the bank. He was like, you know how… Listen, I can tell you, it all has to do with wearing glasses….
Alright that's all you have to say, no swag mom! No spoilers! Did you recognize any references to computer games?
You ask me now that I'm starting to forget! It was like people did things on computers and got into the game and... it was kind of confusing because,
What about YouTube? Were there YouTubers on it?
There are people commenting on the game, and they could see what was going on, towards the end when it went a bit public. It was supposed to be like the people on the screens, like the audience thinking, “Oh, is he going to get out of this? "
Did you recognize any of these YouTubers? Because I understand that some of them are professional YouTubers in the movie.
Oh yes, I could have. There were a lot of people talking, I have no idea who they were, they could have been anyone. This is what I have been missing. To you, I would say, "Oh, that was so-and-so." But for me it could have been Johnny-Next-Door, you know what I mean?
![Imágenes de la película Free Guy]()
(Image credit: 20th Century Studios)
What did you think of Ryan Reynolds in him?
Yeah, I was... I was fine. I'm still from the Bill Murray era and the Jim Carrey era. I don't know if he went to them. But no, no, he was funny. There was a bit of a squeeze at the end...
You probably won't tell us that then!
No, you know I'm good at counting endings! But there's a part at the end where it's another version of him, which made me laugh. But I don't know what I was laughing at, because maybe it's something else I'm not aware of!
Would you like to go see Free Guy...