Truman Show meets The Emoji Movie in the trailer for Ryan Reynolds’ Free Guy
Ryan Reynolds smirks his way through another meta-movie

Thanks to Deadpool, Ryan Reynolds is the king of knowing he’s in a movie. But what if he knew he was in a video game? That’s the prime question asked by the trailer for Free Guy, a collection of movie ideas that have been floating around throughout the 2010s and are held together by Reynolds’ sly smirk.
Elements of Truman Show, They Live, Ready Player One, The Emoji Movie, The Lego Movie, and more populate the trailer. Reynolds stars as “Guy,” an NPC who realizes he’s in a video game and, judging by the usage of “Baba O’Reilly,” goes on an emotional and action-packed journey into the heart of consciousness, free will, and knowing winks at the camera. Guy knows it’s all a game, but “this place, these people” is all he has. Taika Waititi plays a game developer who’s known to the characters as “God.” He’s a bit of a troll and he’ll have to stop the character with sentience because if a video game has sentience, wouldn’t that bring about the end of society? Honestly, there’s a lot to unpack there, which Free Guy’s trailer doesn’t have time to get into.