Unfortunately for gamers the world over, movies adapted from or inspired by video games don’t tend to have much luck in cinema, although some have been more successful than others – check out my post ranking my top ten game-to-film adaptations for my favourites – the latest attempt to unite video games and cinema is Shawn Levy’s Free Guy.

A cross between The Truman Show, Ready Player One and The LEGO Movie, Free Guy puts a different spin on the genre telling the story of the practically invisible gaming staple, the NPC. For those uninitiated amongst you, an NPC is a non-playable character that helps to drive along the gamer’s missions. They can be shopkeepers to sell your loot to, lonely travelers who sell secrets for gold or enemies to defeat. But one thing they all have in common is their rigidity and routine, always in the same place wearing the same clothes and reciting the same dialogue and catch phrases.

“Don’t have a good day, have a great day.”

In the world of Free City, an online open-world simulation game, the players, denoted by the sunglasses worn by their avatars, run around without inhibitions causing whatever chaos they wish. Tanks and drifting street racers roam the streets, cars and buildings are frequently blown up by rocket launchers and places of business are robbed multiple times a day. Now in our world, this all sounds awful but life is good for the residents of Free City and they happily go along with their preprogrammed routines without a care in the world. That is until Guy, a cheery likeable NPC, falls in love with Molotov Girl, a player with a private mission of her own, and starts to deviate from his programming. Guy takes a pair of sunglasses from a player which lifts the veil on his world and he sees missions, weapon stashes and med-kits all hiding beneath the surface.

Back in the real world, we learn that Molotov Girl is a game developer named Millie who is suing the head of Soonami Games, Antwan Hovachelik, for stealing the code of ‘Life Itself’, an ambitious yet unreleased game that had the potential to replicate the real world that she developed with her old partner Walter ‘Keys’ McKey, to build ‘Free City’. She spends her days searching for evidence of the code in the game to proof her case and agrees to team up with Guy once he reaches a high enough level.

Guy’s progression to level 100, done solely through virtuous acts of goodness and generosity rather than the staple video game of destructive acts, makes him a sensation in the outside world with all ‘Free City’ players speculating as to who the player behind ‘Blue Shirt Guy’ is – without realising that is actually an incredible breakthrough in artificial intelligence.

But as Millie and Guy get closer to achieving their goal, the villainous and greedy Antwan is willing to do whatever it takes to stop them including destroying the world of ‘Free City’ and all the NPC’s that reside within it.

Traversing between the real and simulated world, the story plods along quite nicely but was in itself a little predictable and oversold, struggling to find its own identity amongst the sources that influenced its plot. But sometimes we just want a film that we can chill out to, without the need to concentrate on what’s going on with any great deal of focus and Free Guy is perfect for that. There are pockets of fun that will make you laugh out loud including a borderline genius cameo appearance and a series of movie references in quick succession that, despite being enjoyable to watch, also feel as though it’s just an opportunity for Disney to flex their muscles.

Performance wise, Ryan Reynolds delivers the lovable kind of schtick that has become his trademark style and whilst it does work for this film, it has become a little ‘samey’. Taika Waitit delivers a caricature of a villain that is simultaneously hilarious and totally unfunny. Stranger Things favourite, Joe Keery brings a charismatic sexiness to a typically unsexy role and he has a great chemistry with the film’s shining star – Jodie Comer.

There’s nothing new or particularly special about Free Guy and there are some elements that border a little too close to stereotypical cliché – such as the ‘hot guy avatar’ being a nerdy adult man living in his mum’s house – but as a form of escapism, it really does hit the mark and I, for one, found the little nods and easter eggs to gaming culture great fun to watch.

Free Guy is available to stream on Disney Plus.