What do you get if you mix Ready Player One, The Truman Show, The Lego Movie and Grand Theft Auto into one?
Well, the answer is Free Guy, the new action-comedy-adventure-romance-video game adaptation (trust us, it's all of those) starring Ryan Reynolds, Jodie Comer, Joe Kerry, Taika Waititi and more famous cameos than you'll possibly remember.
Brimming with charm, gags and pure enjoyment, Shawn Levy's film might be the most enjoyable blockbuster released this summer and a perfect vehicle for Reynolds' wonderful comedy style.
In terms of the plot, Guy (Ryan Reynolds) is a bank teller at Free City Bank who lives a simple existence.
Positive, cheerful but doomed to never rise above his mediocre and dull job as a bank teller, Guy's world changes when he discovers he is actually a background player in the ultra-violent video game called 'Free City' - a world that's like the most violent elements of Fornite and Grand Theft Auto combined.
Free City is the planet's popular game where chaos and devastation reign.
However, Guy's life is changed when he meets Molotovgirl (Jodie Comer), who helps him navigate the game and come to terms with the fact that the only life he has known is not real.
It turns out that Molotovgirl, whose name in the real world is Millie, has a bone to pick with the game's creators but as Guy begins to learn more about the game, his decency and optimism slowly start to make him an unlikely hero in both worlds - real and online.
Can Guy's hopeful approach to life make him a champion for both the players in the game and the real world?
Packed with brilliant setpieces, memorable gags, stacks of Easter Eggs and nostalgic callbacks, Free Guy is the epitome of a fun time at the cinema but for Reynolds, he was drawn to the fact that Guy was very unlike the heroes he's played before.
Speaking at a press conference that the Irish Mirror attended, Reynolds said he identified with the naivety and decency of Guy.
"My default mode is just pure trash, you know, on the inside. So, for this, it's just slightly new for me," joked the Deadpool star.
"There's a movie that I love called Being There starring Peter Sellers. And that was the first kind of foothold I had into this character and this world. There's something really wonderful about playing a character who's kind of naive and innocent. It's said in the movie that he's kind of like a four-year-old adult.
"There's something really fun about exploring everything with new eyes, which is what this character gets to do, and sort of filtering that through the prism of comedy and occasionally cynicism, and all sorts of other things. I love a playing character who is sort of stepping out of the background into this," said Reynolds.
With overt nods to video game culture and other gems like The Matrix, Westworld and Wreck-It Ralph, Free Guy feels like a mash of pop culture but crucially, it maintains a very original feel.
Having starred in the Deadpool films and another sequel that was released this summer, The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard, the Canadian star knows the importance of major releases to studios.
However, the star of Just Friends and Definitely, Maybe believes that Free Guy stands out from the rest of the films released this summer because it's an original story with a look that's unlike anything else that film fans have seen before.
"Shawn (director) and I had met about another project, we had a couple of close calls. We were close to working together but after I read the script, I sent it to Shawn and the next thing I know, Shawn was in my living room in New York.
"We were talking about this world and how we could build it, and how we can make changes that would make it kind of relevant and speak to the world that we're living in now.
"It just sort of went from there and it's hard to make a new movie. It's hard to make something that isn't based on some pre-existing IP or a comic book or a sequel in some regard. It's very challenging," he said.
Despite being one of the most recognisable and bankable stars on the planet, Reynolds told the Irish Mirror and others that it's still hard to make films like Free Guy because it's a story that doesn't have a pre-existing fan base.
Having also starred in the likes of Green Lantern, Blade: Trinity and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Reynolds has cut his chops in the comic-book world and knows what he's talking about but trust us, Free Guy is much better than those three films!
"You get the movie and the script to a place that you feel like it's perfect or it's great. But then you have to kind of make it 30% better somehow because you don't have any sort of pre-existing knowledge or fan base to rely on.
"You really have to kind of go out there and prove it the old-fashioned way. That was a challenge that, thank God, Shawn and every single cast member on this was up for. It was nerve-wracking and it continues to be nerve-wracking, even now as we're done and entering the world," he said.
With a rating of 85% on Rotten Tomatoes and 63% on Metacritic, it looks like Free Guy is about to be a hit.
Free Guy is released in Irish cinemas on Friday, 13 August.
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