There’s nothing quite as satisfying as watching a movie that you expected to be, y’know, probably fine, and it turns out to be really good instead. But then again, I think it is also time to acknowledge that Ryan Reynolds, at this stage in his career, is one of those guys who doesn’t make bad movies. Plus, and I’m ranging a bit far afield of my point now, but his acting style is one I have hardly ever seen before. There are the people who vanish into their roles, and the people that are too famous to vanish but still you are impressed by their ability to be two people at once, and the people who are obviously just playing themselves. And then there’s this guy, unique in my memory, who plays himself, but in a funny game of what if. “What if I got to pretend to be Pikachu?” “What if I got to pretend to be Deadpool?” “What if I got to pretend to be an irrepressibly cheerful NPC in a sandbox video game?”

Free Guy is pretty much the movie you expect it to be, at first glance. Guy works at the Bank, which gets robbed several times a day by the People Who Wear the Glasses. Then, after an inciting incident with a girl humming a song, he starts taking control of his own destiny. I like video games, and I like Reynolds, so the premise was enough to get me to watch. But the thing is, the story is written much more thoughtfully than the previews implied, and the result is a timely, occasionally hilarious, and sweet-hearted look at what our games and indeed what our world could someday look like.