It's already been a pretty good year for video game movies, thanks to the release of Mortal Kombat back in April, which brought the iconic franchise to bloody life--hopefully, kicking off a new series of films. Free Guy is a different kind of video game movie, though. While clearly influenced by open-world games like Grand Theft Auto V, and the world of gaming itself, this isn't an adaptation of a popular title.

Instead, Free Guy uses video game settings and tropes to tell an original story about someone finding their own power after a lifetime of powerlessness. It also happens to be very funny, is stuffed with some utterly ridiculous action, and features a host of good performances, including one that's truly iconic.

The story follows Guy (Ryan Reynolds), a bank employee who doesn't realize he is nothing more than a non-player character (NPC) inside of a GTA-like game called Free City. He has the perfect NPC life, totally oblivious to the masses of human players committing heinous acts around him, until he comes into possession of a pair of player sunglasses that show him everything that's really happening in his world. After seeing what's really going on, he starts a journey to become a hero himself, racing to save his world before the game's developers shut Free City down.