The explosions are merely metaphorical expositions of the heartburn caused by the artificial coffee.
Free Guy (2021) is a mild-mannered exploration of a topic that’s long interested me: what happens when “artificial intelligence” actually becomes self-aware – and self-interested? In this case, it’s a video game in which the human players interact with each other as well as the NPCs – non-player characters who form the background to the city in which all exist. An artificial intelligence feature permits the NPCs to interact more realistically with the human players.
But then Blue Shirt Guy begins questioning why he does the same thing every day. And then he gets a hold of a pair of glasses that lets him see what the human players are seeing.
Mind blown. And he does seem to have one.
And then he stumbles across a human player who happens to have a grudge against the provider of the game, because she helped write the artificial intelligence and feels it was stolen. But she has to prove it’s present in the game, and she’s searching for it. Guy swirls about in her wake, learning, trying to help.
And being an instantiation of her goal.
It’s all a bit silly, but undeniably fun as well. While it doesn’t have any great insights, it does raise the most important question of all: does an artificial intelligence have any sort of right to existence?
Too bad the potential for a completely exotic “reality” is wasted here, but the real point of this movie is to make money, not explore one of the more outre questions potentially facing humanity. Have a laugh.
