Ryan Reynolds - BGCP Comic Con

Review – Free Guy (2021)

14th August 2021

SUMMARY Ever wondered when you’re playing Grand Theft Auto just what that NPC you just ran over with your car and robbed is up to these days? Well his name is Guy. He lives in the Free City, works at a bank, has a goldfish named Goldie and he’s about to change the gaming landscape and the world all in the name of love! Groundhog Day meets Grand Theft Auto with Ryan Reynolds as a concept being the magnetic pull between them. CINEMATOGRAPHY The cinematography is versatile throughout the film, offering an array of shooting styles for whatever the occasion requires. There is perhaps an overdependency on slow motion which is used quite indifferently all over the film, like a throw it at the wall and see if it sticks mentality. An interesting but sure to be divisive element of the CGI is the perception of the video game in the real world. When the scene is within the game it’s characters are fully live action and appear as if they are from the real world, however from the outside looking in, Free City becomes computer generated like that one Red Hot Chili Peppers music video. As I say, this will divide viewers but I believe it is is justified. WRITING Not even a minute in we are presented with a Tim-Milleresque sandbox of nihilistic chaos while the dissonant and unforgiving innocence of Ryan Reynolds monologues about the film your now laughing hysterically at. To say this is the whole plot would be correct but inaccurate as laced throughout this certified action comedy is Levy’s brilliant satire on AI and modern society. With it’s setting based in the world of video games both literally and professionally, there are a tonne of fan service with references to games like Halo, Half-Life, Portal and Grand Theft Auto as well as real world gaming culture like Let’s Players, technological advancements and loads of appropriate terminology, all treated and delivered with passion and understanding. If you don’t know what an NPC is however, those references will be lost to you. Fear not as there is more than enough fun to be had throughout the film. OVERALL In conclusion, Free Guy is a tremendously fun and excitingly wholesome film. What the film lacks in gripping dramatic stakes is made up for with insane action set pieces and blisteringly accurate social commentaries all delivered by a top notch cast just having fun with each of their roles. What could have been a throw away Non Replayable Film turned out to be the hero we need and the the video game film we deserve! It was a surreal experience walking out of the cinema and into the real world again, all I could think about was that I was in Free City without sunglasses! It takes a special kind of film to change your perception of the real world. It’s not a good film…it’s a GREAT film! [yasr_multiset setid=2] [yasr_visitor_multiset setid=2] Let us know in the comments your thoughts on Free Guy (2021), your favourite video game adaptation and don’t have a good day…have a GREAT day! Buy tickets for BGCP Comic Con in and around Glasgow Scotland – BUY TICKETS Check out all of our Comic, Movie, Television and Videogame Reviews HERE and our Podcasts/Interviews HERE If you want to be part of the BGCP community, Join us on Discord, Twitter, Instagram etc then click HERE

Review – Free Guy (2021) Read More »

Review – Deadpool

14th May 2021

Review – Deadpool Directed by: Tim Miller Produced by: Ryan Reynolds & Stan Lee Written by: Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Ed Skrein & Morena Baccarin Release Date: February 10th 2016 (UK) Believe it or not, this movie came out over five years ago, so I thought that it was high time to go back and revisit the first Deadpool movie for review. It is hard to imagine now following the huge success of this film and its sequel, but there was a time when many thought that this movie would never get made, but I am very glad that it did. The movie served as an origin story to Deadpool, – something that was long awaited by many comic fans. The movie version of The Merc With A Mouth is fairly faithful to his comic book counterpart, at least much more so than the previous iteration of the character that Ryan Reynolds played. Reynolds is fantastic as Deadpool in this film, he truly was born to play the character in my opinion. He brings the crass, funny, violent and energetic energy needed for Deadpool. He manages to consistently do this along with being pretty similar to comic book Deadpool, with the only thing missing from this version being the multiple voices in his head. Now that the rights to the character are with Disney following their acquisition of 20th Century Fox and Deadpool has been confirmed to be joining the MCU, hopefully that is a character trait that we will see developed in future movies. The movie’s plot is pretty straightforward but it is well-written and delivers on what we need it to; humour and action. We are introduced to Wade Wilson and shown how he got his powers after being diagnosed with incurable cancer via flashback. From there we basically follow him while he attempts to track down Ajax, or Francis, (the guy that turned him into Deadpool and made him deformed,) so that he can cure his skin and give him back his good looks. The screenplay isn’t exactly of a Nolan-level complexity, but it doesn’t need to be and it works. The one thing that was always going to either make or break this movie, was the humour. However, the script captures Deadpool’s signature meta humour perfectly, which is an essential as it is a crucial component in what makes up this character and is one of the main reasons why so many people love him. So, if you are one of these fans, don’t fret as the movie is chock full of clever fourth wall breaks and pop-culture references. The film was granted an R-rating by the studio and the filmmakers take full advantage of that fact, with constant violence and egregious amounts of blood splattered along with plenty of f-bombs being dropped throughout the film’s dialogue. The hip hop based score also adds to the energetic tone of the movie and helps to add to the excitement of the action scenes throughout. Overall, whether you are a fan of the Deadpool comic or not, as long as you are into crass humour, over the top cartoon violence and R rated superhero movies, then there is no reason why you won’t love this movie. It is also still the best Fox superhero movie that we ever got some may even argue that it is the best R-rated superhero movie ever produced. [yasr_multiset setid=2] [yasr_visitor_multiset setid=2] If you enjoyed Dan’s review of Deadpool, you can check out what he thought of the sequel here. Buy tickets for BGCP Comic Con in and around Glasgow Scotland – BUY TICKETS Check out all of our Comic, Movie, Television and Videogame Reviews HERE and our Podcasts/Interviews HERE If you want to be part of the BGCP community, Join us on Discord, Twitter, Instagram etc then click HERE www.bigglasgowcomicpage.com

Review – Deadpool Read More »

Review – Deadpool 2

20th May 2021

Review – Deadpool 2 Directed by: David Leitch Produced by: Ryan Reynolds & Stan Lee Written by: Rhett Reese & Ryan Reynolds Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin & Morena Baccarin Release Date: May 15th 2018 (UK) I was recently asked to review Deadpool 2 for the site and I honestly went back to it reluctantly. Although I did enjoy the movie when it came out, it has never had the same re-watchability as the first one and although it is only a 3 year old movie, I wasn’t expecting it to have aged very well. Thankfully my negative preconceptions were misplaced and I ended up actually having a really good time re-watching Deadpool 2 for review. Deadpool 2 is the kind of sequel that knows exactly what it is. It doesn’t pretend to be anything original and it’s main focus is getting a laugh out of it’s audience over anything else. It succeeds greatly at this with the film being hilarious throughout and it comes very close to being as funny as it’s predecessor, it just doesn’t quite get there. I think that the main reason for this is because it chooses to focus more on a story than the last one did and through that, the humour loses some of the momentum that it builds up. Although the first movie’s laughs have better momentum, an argument could be made for this movie’s individual lines being funnier. My particular favourite was the jab Deadpool makes at his creator Rob Liefeld for not being able to draw feet properly in his comics. Check out our fantasy MCU Casting for the X-Men I loved how they chose to show off Domino’s powers. Her power of ‘luck,’ could have came across really lame onscreen, but David Leitch’s fantastic direction helped it to come across brilliantly. I also loved the cameos, from the room full of X-Men, to Brad Pitt as the Vanisher. When they killed Vanessa at the start of the movie, I was disappointed as I was looking forward to seeing her character develop in this movie and I felt like just killing her off to give Deadpool motivation for his arc in the movie was pretty lazy. Then, they immediately rectified it with the hilarious Bond-esque opening title sequence. Later on, I thought that they were going to make Vanessa become Death, who is Deadpool’s love interest in the comics because he has so many encounters with her, but at the end of the movie we see Deadpool going back in time to reverse her death from happening, which also sort of negates a lot of the emotional beats that the movie surprisingly managed to hit during it’s finale. The Juggernaught is the movie’s surprise villain and while it is nice to see him in his comic accurate form, the CGI used is really cartoony and even hard to swallow in a surreal superhero movie like this one. However, that’s not why anybody watches a Deadpool movie. If I was looking for deep, meaningful character arcs and realistic CGI, there are a ton of other movies for that. Deadpool is there to make you laugh and there is no doubt that it succeeds at that. There are some comedic moments that feel oddly dated, like the constant references to dubstep for example and I feel like they missed a trick not bringing up the fact that the director was swapped out during the film’s production or the real life scandals involving TJ Miller, but every joke earns at least a chuckle, which justifies it’s place in the film. It may not as quite as novel because we have seen it before, but there are plenty of scenes in here that will have you laughing out loud in the cinema and fans of the character will not be disappointed. [yasr_multiset setid=2] [yasr_visitor_multiset setid=2] Buy tickets for BGCP Comic Con in and around Glasgow Scotland – BUY TICKETS Check out all of our Comic, Movie, Television and Videogame Reviews HERE and our Podcasts/Interviews HERE

Review – Deadpool 2 Read More »