WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Free Guy, now in theaters.
Free Guy finds its titular character, the innocent Guy, in Free City, an open video game world where he's a background character that doesn't have much to do. However, everything changes when the bank worker gains sentience, falls in love with the game's developer, Millie (Jodie Comer), and is confirmed to be the Chosen One and key in exposing Soonami Studios. Admittedly, the idea of someone being awakened in a fake construct definitely holds a lot of parallels to The Matrix, but Guy's story actually ends up being superior to Neo's.
In The Matrix, the Wachowskis had Neo, Morpheus, Trinity, and the rebels breaking people out of their digital world, assembling an army to attack the machines in the real world. These machines wanted them to remain "sleeping" drones in what they thought was reality, but as Neo's team liberated people, they didn't care about the background players.
Guy, on the other hand, knows background characters programmed to do nothing still have personalities. It gives him an extra layer of heart Neo didn't have, which is why he rallies everyone together in a union. Guy provides the epiphany, that cerebral spark to remind them they are as real as they feel. And thanks to Keys' code, he's been awakened and wants to ensure, even if Soonami resets the game, everyone knows their worth.
And to make him seem even more selfless when compared to Neo, Guy doesn't choose one world over the other. He wants to help Millie get the evidence to break Soonami's evil empire as much as he wants to free his own people, giving him a sense of reality that Neo just never had.
Guy helping save the work not only allows Millie to fight corporation tyranny in the real world, but it'll also empower her and other like-minded developers to make games with meaning. This cements Guy as a beacon of hope and inspiration, using his destiny to motivate people as a movement worldwide. And, in the end, when the characters become their best selves in the game, it has a stronger emotional impact than Morpheus' rebellion, which only had the needs of the few in mind.
To see Ryan Reynolds' Guy outshine Neo's rebels, Free Guy is in theaters now.
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