‘Free Guy’: Ryan Reynolds Gets Violent and Video Games-y in First Trailer (Video)

CCXP 2019: Sci-Fi comedy also stars Joe Kerry, Jodie Comer and Taika Waititi

Get ready to feel slightly bad about the hours you’ve spent slaughtering video game characters. At Comic Con Experience Brazil, Ryan Reynolds debuted the first trailer for what he called “my favorite movie I ever made,” his upcoming new action comedy “Free Guy.” Watch it here right now.

In the film, Reynolds plays a normal guy who discovers he’s a NPC (on player character) in a violent open world game called “Free City” that will soon be discontinued. So think, “The Matrix” meets “Grand Theft Auto” and “Tron.” Reynolds is also here at Comic Con Experience Brazil to promote his Netflix action film “Six Underground” which was directed by Michael Bay.

The trailer kicks off with a joke at Disney’s expense, promising that the film comes “from the studio that brought you ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ ‘Aladdin,’ ‘The Lion King,’ twice.” From there, we see Reynold’s unnamed Guy waking up from a good night’s sleep and start getting ready to head to his job as a bank teller. As we leave his apartment we see his city is plagued with constant, cartoonish violence which Guy and his fellow happy citizens treat as totally normal.

However, during a bank robbery, Guy wonders if there’s more to life than just being robbed and narrowly avoiding death day in, day out, and decides to try and stop the robbery. He succeeds, and steals the robber’s sunglasses — turns out, he killed a real gamer’s avatar and now can see the same heads up display IRL players do, plus all the power ups and health packs that were previously invisible to him. Cue a whole bunch of action, and some joking sexual tension with Jodie Comer’s character Molotov Girl (well, aside from her telling him to “enjoy a lifetime of virginity”).

On hand to present the footage with Reynolds were director Shawn Levy and co-star Joe Keery. They mostly avoided spoilers, though Levy did say that the film “exists in the video game world and the real world,” with Taika Waiti (who wasn’t in attendance) playing the CEO of the company that makes Free City. Levy also described the film “as a superhero origin story,” while Reynolds said character “is little like the 40 year old virgin, who is very naive.” Keery meanwhile told the crowd that Reynold’s character is “an algorithm” who becomes “the first real artificial intelligence.”

The crowd at CCXP was also treated to a couple of exclusive clips. The first began in the video game world and follows Molotov Girl in a standard video game stock room filled with guns and vehicles. This was followed by shots of of the city, where we see the citizens all have heads up displays above their eyes. Then cut to Reynolds, whose character intones “I never hurt innocent people.”

In the second clip, we see Reynold’s and Keery’s characters as they figure out that Waititi’s character has stolen Reynold’s source code.

“Free City” is directed by Shawn Levy, “Free Guy” also stars Lil Rel Howery and Utkarsh Ambudkar. “Free Guy” hits theaters July 3rd, 2020.

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