The best films of 2021

What the critics say about this year’s new movie releases

1. Free Guy

With his “eerily generic” looks and knack for clowning, Ryan Reynolds is perfectly cast in this “cheerfully silly” action comedy as Guy, a character in a violent computer game who develops self-awareness, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. Guy is a non-player character (NPC) – a perpetually smiley bank teller who lives an ordinary-joe life in a shiny modern city that just happens to have a wildly high crime rate. But then an encounter with Millie – a glamorous avatar controlled by a nerdy Seattle gamer (Jodie Comer) – kicks off his journey to free will and agency. The former background character starts to write his own story, with the privileges of a human-controlled player, and a romance thrown in.

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