Honestly, a few days ago, I didn't expect much from the clichéd, temporary airborne movie "Free Guy", because it was a film that could see the end at a glance.
However, after actually watching the film, this film greatly surprised me: in terms of content alone, it is indeed not "fresh", but through enough witty and skilled commercial film techniques, it can tell a traditional story enough to be funny and good-looking, which once again proves that "skill" still plays a pivotal role.
There's a more important emotional reason why "Out of Control" has won my favor — it's one of the fewer hollywood commercial films that values programmers, shows design thinking, and has a science and engineering romance.
Therefore, out of selfishness, I will focus on praise below.
Since it is a game-themed movie, we have to mention a few words of "video game feelings" in "Out of Control Player".
It is not difficult for anyone who knows the game to see that the "Liberty City" in the film is a tribute to the "Grand Theft Auto" series, and this film even has a "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Legends" style poster, which is also no one...
In addition, the design inspiration of "SimCity", the details of "Fortnite", the teleporter gun of "Portal", the beam cannon of "Mega Man", etc., have achieved little but fine moisturizer and silent.
It is a little regrettable that probably because of the lack of copyright, the classic game memes contained in "Runaway Player" are not very many - but conversely, the 20th Century Fox, which has been included in Disney, has shown another kind of "copyright muscle", Captain America's shield + "Peach" Chris Evans's spit + Hulk's fist + Star Wars lightsaber show, which makes me feel a little when watching "Invincible Destruction King 2"... The mountains are big and the copyright is more than cattle.
As for my "selfishness", to put it bluntly, there are many programmers, designers and other Internet industry social animals in "Out of Control Player", and the game character dude (big guy) is the master of this concept and detail display.
Dude is a semi-finished NPC (non-player character) that has not yet been designed and forced online, and his body reveals the daily hair loss of the R&D department and the code farmers - although it is based on the bank clerk cover (guy) of "Liberty City", but obviously the employees have not thought about how to design this muscular macho killer, basic shoes and pants, with a naked upper body and blue icon on the left chest, and copying Ryan Reynolds's face without model optimization, it is simply full of "new folders" After the shabby.
What's more is that Dude uses imperfect voice effects to say his favorite three things "flat people, to be determined, enter the third option", even if you are not doing program development, I believe that as long as you have done any courseware document ppt and other things, you can get the sloppiness and laziness behind this laugh point.
Combined with the words of the head of the art department before the dude went online, "Guys, we are going to lose our jobs collectively", I really laughed in hindsight.
With such a perspective and attitude from the perspective of the developer, the story of "Out of Control Player" will naturally not be difficult to see where to go.
The film has two clear and unambiguous story lines, one is the npc cover in the game, out of admiration for the player character "Molotov cocktail girl", began to develop self-awareness, through their own unique efforts, has completed the feat of winning the kiss of beauty and saving the game world.
As the main selling point of "Runaway Player", Gai's growth adventure superimposes the setting of works such as "Truman's World" and "Westworld", although the process is much easier and more fun, but there is nothing less.
Tiredness and doubt about stylized life, courageous execution of the heartbeat, success in the game upgrade, wandering and firmness to the truth... Gai has all these experiences, coupled with his NPC-style sluggishness and the learning and evolution of artificial intelligence, making this journey very interesting.
The most typical bridge section is The mechanical and simple pursuit of the "Molotov cocktail girl", the undisguised clumsiness and heat, is the love that is difficult to reproduce in the flesh.
There is also the conversation between Guy and his good brother Buddy about self-existence, which also reflects two very different but different wisdoms: Buddy, who only knows how to run according to the program, chooses to believe in the truth of "living in the moment", and is at ease with the situation and knows his destiny; Gai is allocated this point and obtains peace of will, but is it not "there is only one kind of heroism in the world, that is, he still loves life after seeing the truth of life"?
The film's other real-world storyline is deceptively simple, but more realistic and romantic.
Millie (millie) and keyboard (keys) are originally a pair of independent game developers, their small studio was acquired by the boss of the big company Antoine, the original open world game based on "growth artificial intelligence" was hidden, and the company's "Liberty City" launched soon after was a global hit, discouraged keyboard thought that there was no way to resist, chose to work for Antoine, and Millie, who firmly believed that Antoine stole her own underlying code, was pseudonymized as "Molotov cocktail girl", and worked hard to find evidence in the game.
The uncompromising Millie, the stoic keyboard, the data-paramount Antoine, and even the love-hate mouse are all developers with distinct personalities.
Although "Out of Control Player" does not focus on the idea battle of these gamers, the plot direction and ending still follow the basic universal logic, that is, the idealists who pursue free innovation defeat the secular people who chase the copper infamy.
But then again, Antoine's deal with Millie before destroying the server still kind of downgraded him to a vulgar and stupid taste - the "Liberty City" series, to put it bluntly, is still an "upgraded high-end version of "Grand Theft Auto Plus" game, as long as the application technology continues to iterate and upgrade, we can play sooner or later, and "Free Life" based on independent growth artificial intelligence is a veritable "open world" with unlimited possibilities, which not only subversively creates new ways to play, And its significance has long gone beyond the narrow sense of the game (anyway, the current AI technology can not achieve), the two values can not be compared at all - Antoine actually thinks that Millie is making a huge loss of money, it is really blind.
Of course, such small problems are harmless, and the core theme and landing point of "Out of Control Player" is still "from people, to people", which is embodied in the interaction, integration and sublimation of two story lines.
Cover's adventure lies in getting rid of the fate of the tool man and living his own life; Millie and the keyboard's journey is to regain the fruits of their labor and find each other whose hearts belong.
The keyboard with "Millie's hobbies, characteristics" and "their own anxiety" written into a courtship npc cover, when the cover realized the origin of his own people to set the cornerstone and told Millie, he really jumped out of the original code loop framework, began to explore his new future, and the dull Millie and the timid keyboard also took this to break through the window paper that existed for a long time, mutual achievement, merit is perfect (but I still have to complain, since the keyboard has long been interesting, why did not recognize the NPC designed by his heart, That's a bug).
Director Sean Levy has directed the "Museum Fantastic Night" series, "Iron Fist" and other popular commercial films, and he is also the co-director of the "Stranger Things" series of American dramas, and he does have a set of grasps of the combination of fantasy elements and warm themes, and now it seems that he has contributed a masterpiece above the standard line.
Finally, I'd like to wrap up this article with one of my favorite scenes from Runaway Player.
The resettable Cover forgot his previous experiences, in order to restore his memory, Millie kissed him directly, and in an instant, all the source code and AI autonomous running log records burst out like a colorful music behind Gai's head... For the first time, I felt that extremely stylized code could have such a poetic beauty.
A binary of 0 and 1 can never deceive people, and with countless 0s and 1s, you can write infinite possibilities, romantic love letters, and vows of great love.