The main character is the focus in our editorial office. The film’s bouncy trailers and vibrant cast, which included the much-loved Jodie Comer, promised an unconventional look at the world of video games. But, because the producers didn’t understand the subject, common sense won out, and another shameful story emerged, in which gamers are represented by unemployed streamers living with their mothers, or simply plump and pimply nerds. The sarcastic Taiki Waititi’s participation in the project did not save it; in this film, he grossly overestimates, causing annoyance. At the same time, the work’s concept is unique in the field.
Ryan Reynolds is a secondary NPC in the modern MMO Free City, which resembles a mix of Grand Theft Auto and Fortnite… He wakes up every virtual morning, looks at his favorite fish in a convex aquarium, has a cup of hot coffee in a nearby cafe, and then goes to work at the bank with his best friend, a black security guard. However, the script breaks one day, and he falls in love with Millie, a cool girl who is a member of a local superhero team – superheroes who are, in reality, regular people. They can smash the streets with a tank, rob banks, and kill innocent NPCs, unlike ordinary residents.
Their only distinguishing feature from the rest of Free City’s residents is their fashionable glasses. Guy (the hero of Reynolds) soon obtains the coveted glasses, and the world around him changes. The secondary NPC begins to gain levels, complete tasks, and gain international fame in pursuit of the dream girl. Developers and streamers can hear the top player in Free City, but no one realizes that it’s just an AI with free will.
Millie and her old friend Keyes are attempting to locate the sources of his source code in the world of Free City in order to sue the greedy CEO of the gaming corporation Antvan. Taika Waititi tries to play Bobby the Cat, but he ends up sounding like a TikTok krinzh. Comer, disguised as a tough hacker and a brave gamer, can’t shake the image of a hitman from the TV show “Killing Eve.”
Ryan Reynolds, on the other hand, is quite plastic in this scene, in keeping with his virtual hero. Renting popular Twitch streamers and putting fashionable peripherals in the frame only compounds the problem.
“The main character,” from the director of “Living Steel” and “Nights at the Museum,” is a throwback to the 1990s, with a clumsy plot, a caricatured villain, and a weak main cast whose flaws aren’t even drawn by average computer graphics. For those who are familiar with video games, “The protagonist” is two hours of shame and humiliation in Spanish. It’s like Adam Sandler’s Pixels, but even worse. Imagine a social drama in which two plumbers spend the entire film dressed as Mario and Luigi and joking about cleaning pipes. As a result, the “protagonist” is far worse.
