Ryan Reynolds’ newest big-screen hit is more than meets the eye. While first impressions ofFree Guyrightfully cast it as a fun and carefree romp through video games and pop culture, it crystallizes a new type of movie genre that has been forming for decades. Both as an attempt to reach the video game audience plus a result of megacorporate mergers, Hollywood has birthed a new genre in the 21st Century: the metamalgamation.Free Guyis the most recent and quintessential example of a metamalgamation. The influences of its predecessors can be clearly seen and felt throughout the movie, and would one go back to watch the emerging archetypes of this genre one would see a definitive through-line from them to this.
Here is the definition of metamalgamation. First, a metamalgamation is a movie where a conglomeration of franchises mash together their properties on-screen for audience delight or acknowledgment. Second, it’s where a secondary world is aware that its reality is semi or fully artificial and can interact with that knowledge.
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The Prototypes
DeconstructingFree Guy, the viewer can see allthe inherent ingredientsof a metamalgamation. The essential traits and qualities of the genre have existed in movies for decades and can be detected as far back as the 80’s - possibly further. The early forms of metamalgamations were primarily proto-metas. As the genre developed there released a few proto-amalgamations. The most recent entries are true and pure metamalgamations in all its glory. The two streams break down as such: meta meaning when the character is self-aware that they are in an artificial world, and an amalgamation is when the corporate overlord uses all its toys in one property. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it represents the most important and emblematic movies of the metamalgamations development and synthesis. These movies are also direct influences onFree Guyin one way or another.
Proto-Metas
There is a scene inFree Guywhen Guy implores Buddy to wear his glasses to see the game world but Buddy refuses. This is a callback to arguably the first proto-meta of the genre, John Carpenter’sThey Live(1988). In it, Nada implores Frank to wear his sunglasses to see the invisible alien security forces that occupy the planet. Regrettably, Guy and Buddy don’t break into an epic six-minute fistfight likeThey Livebut the kernel of meta is there. Nada and Frank discover thatthey live in an “artificial,” or manufactured reality. The exact same technique of how to witness the other world is employed inFree Guyvia the sunglasses the Player Characters wear vs the Non-Player Characters who have no sunglasses.
TV’sReboot(1994-2001) is very much likeFree Guy. The world is separated by“the Users” and the NPCs. The characters are aware their world is a game and that there is a different reality outside of their own. When Guy is unable to push pastan invisible boundary on the shorelineofFree Citythat is a direct call-out to the next proto-meta,The Truman Show(1998). Truman’s life is contained in a giant dome (that is really a soundstage) that uses a sea as its physical boundary.
The most obvious proto-meta isThe Matrix(1999). It popularized the cinematic concept ofa real world and an artificial one, and the main character’s ability to transit between them and manipulate one of them. In this case, the artificial world is a digital one – very much likeFree Guy. The first mainstream movie to try and use video game concepts in the real world is 2009’sGamerstarring Gerard Butler. In it, Gerard Butler’s character (a real person, not a computer character) is “played” by a seventeen-year-old kid in a deathmatch competition.
A surprise underdog,Tron: Legacy(2010) proposes the idea of an AI code becoming a sentient life form, much like Guy’s transformation inFree Guy. UnlikeTron: Legacy’sQuorra (Olivia Wilde), Guy cannot escapeFree Cityinto the real world. The last notable proto-meta is more likeGamerthan anything but is fully represented inFree Guynonetheless,Edge of Tomorrow(2014). InFree Guy, Guy is tasked by Molotov Girl to level up before he can join her (even though she did not believe he would actually do it). Guy goes into a “live-die-repeat” cycle to learn about his new powers and to master the game he lives in.
Proto-Amalgamations
The proto-amalgamation category is smaller only because it is a more recent phenomenon, and it is a lot more complicated to pull off. The primary examples are movies where several separate properties are owned by a parent company and placed together in a movie for either nostalgic effect or for popular references, or as the grand design of a mega-franchise.
The first is a quick derivative of an idea that culminated two years later, 2010’sThe Expendables. Though Sly Stallone did not necessarily join the franchises of each main character – Rambo is not literally shoulder to shoulder with John McClane, the kernel of the amalgamation of franchises is unmistakable.
Wreck-It Ralph(2012) is the perfect example of avideo game amalgamation. Ralph’s world is composed of a multitude of arcade game characters and levels, including the likes of Bowser, Doctor Eggman, andStreet Fightercharacters like Blanka and Chun-Li.
The foremost example of an amalgamation isThe Avengers(2012). Phase One of the MCU was dedicated to sowing and reaping the purest and most celebrated example of an amalgamation of movie franchises anywhere. Although technically all the characters come from the same comic book universe/movie studio, it cannot be understated the impact this movie had on the world ever since (much to the detriment of the DC Extended Universe).
21st Century Metamalgamations
After all of that, things synergized into the first three true metamalgamations:The Lego Movie(2014),Ready Player One(2018), and finallyFree Guy.
The Lego Movieblended the beloved toy linewith the Warner Bros. catalogue of characters - and lentFree Guyits peppy tone.Ready Player Onewas a storm of characters and references from movies and video games, even incorporatingThe Shining(1980) as one of its main puzzle sequences much in the same wayFree Guyis a heavy riff onFortnite.
Shoutout to Zak Penn
A key figure in all of this is the screenwriter Zak Penn. His first work,The Last Action Hero(1993), gets a special mention as a proto-meta because of the dynamic between action star Jack Slater (Arnold Schwarzeneggar) and a young boy from the real world who crashes into Slater’s movie universe. Penn also wrote the story forThe Avengerswith Joss Whedon, and wrote the screenplays for bothReady Player OneandFree Guy. Perhaps it is a particularity of his to enjoy playing with the idea of reality versus the make-believe?
Spoilers for Free Guy
The metamalgamation genre developed from studios responding to market trends, video games are a highly lucrative medium that is very influential on emerging pop culture, and from the growing conglomeration of intellectual property. The end battle between Guy and Dude has Guy ignite a lightsaber, wield Captain America’s shield, and Hulk smash Dude through a guardrail. All of that is thanks toDisney’s acquisition of 20th Century Foxin 2019 (who were developingFree Guyprior to the purchase).
It could be said that the genre will burn itself out fairly quickly, as how many pop-cultural references can be stuffed into a movie before the audience gets tired of the same old drivel? So far, three movies in, there could be at least one or two more blockbusters to finish off the run before it morphs into something else -the Nintendo movieis surely one – or before it goes dormant to accumulate more pop culture cache to unleash on the next generation of moviegoers. If Disney ever purchases Warner Bros. it is a certainty that a new Marvel DC Extended Cinematic Universe will occupy theaters for another decade or more. For now,Free Guyis the purest versionof a metamalgamation available.
