One day he crosses paths with the woman of his dreams (Jodie Comer) and begins to go off script causing things to unravel both in the game and in the world outside.
Stories that give computer game characters thoughts and an existence of their own are an old chestnut but this is perhaps as good a treatment of that as there's ever been.
The bright violent pop culture infested world Guy inhabits is like a mashup of Ready Player One and The Lego Movie where Jodie Comer's "molotovgirl" is hunting for evidence that the game company stole code from an indie game she wrote along with Joe Keery's "Keys" before they were bought out in a hostile takeover.
They balance the real and game world well and poke fun at gamer culture while Reynolds deadpans being a slightly clueless do-gooder, which makes for a solid bit of fun. It's not complicated but they do briefly flirt with "what is life?" before the city starts to reshape in Inception-esque ways as they race to the final showdown.
Recommended 8/10, which was a surprise to me.