I'm Alex Kirby and welcome to another outing of Press X. This time around we are moving on to the stealthy Metal Gear Solid. Here, we don’t just ask if the latest video game adaptation is faithful — we ask if it levels up, glitches out, or just needs a hard reset.
Many modern gamers may have only been introduced to Metal Gear Solid when it debuted on Playstation back in 1998, but it was actually the third game to a franchise that debuted a decade prior. Created by Hideo Kojima and developed by Konami, Metal Gear is one of the games that pioneered and popularized stealth and cinematic video games. Like my parents, Sega and Nintendo were too busy fighting with each other to notice the young child of Playstation growing up, becoming a formidable opponent in the Console War, and Metal Gear Solid was one of the weapons they had to keep their head above water in its infancy.
Now with a franchise across all platforms, the franchise is still alive and well, although new entries to the series has slowed down and all we see are ports and remakes. Fans hold debates over which Metal Gear Solid is the best, but most of us can all agree the first MGS is what made us fans.
Players control 'Solid Snake,' a soldier who infiltrates a nuclear weapons facility to neutralized a terrorist threat from FOXHOUND, a renegade special forces unit. Snake must free hostages and stop terrorists from launching a nuclear strike. The game's cinematic cutscenes were mind-blowing for the time, especially when you confront Psycho Mantis and he tells you(the Player) what other games you like to play by reading your memory card. I once thought my game was haunted when Psycho Mantis told me I played Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Yep, needed a new controller after that night.
This is all why fans had been asking for a Metal Gear Solid movie. We wondered "Is Psycho Mantis going to tell us we saw The Avengers Endgame?" And in Season 3, we were going to find out. Written by Mark Newton and directed by Joseph Kosinski with Chris Evans as Snake, the film already had some big ambitions, much like the game of which it was based on.
The film plot itself, is basically the equivalent of the video game on the big screen, streamlined into a two-hour sci-fi action thrill-ride. A retired soldier, Solid Snake, is sent to infiltrate a remote Alaskan facility seized by the rogue FOXHOUND unit, who threaten nuclear annihilation using the walking tank Metal Gear REX. As he fights through deadly operatives and old allies turned enemies, Snake uncovers a conspiracy tying him to the project’s mastermind, the legacy of Big Boss, and a lethal virus hidden in his own body. What begins as a rescue mission becomes a battle for identity, survival, and the truth behind his creation.
While many fans may have liked it for its familiarity to the plot, making it less likely to ruin anything, the movie alienated fans who have already played the game and knew exactly what was going to happen.
Critics felt this sentiment, those who panned it said it did little more than give characters things to say and action scenes to perform. Critics who praised it loved Chris Evans' Solid Snake and Joseph Kosinski's direction.
For me personally, I'm happy we got a Metal Gear Solid film. It's narrative lends itself well to a movie adaptation, but I do think it relied too heavily on the game, hitting too many moments that happened in the game that made me think "I could have saved the price of admission and popped this into my Playstation and it wouldn't have been any different except for famous actors in the parts."
Despite my opinion, audiences still showed up in masses. A combined 428M with a heavy budget of 142M. It made 108M in profit. Clearly the studio took a gamble on it it, and it still paid off. It would go on to earn a Most Wanted Sequel nomination, and in a few seasons, we would certainly see Solid Snake again.
Since Metal Gear Solid, Mark Newton has become a career "big movie" writer, penning Marvel, Masters of the Universe and even Pompeii. Joseph Kosinski would be given director duties for the Batman franchise in LRF, and I can definitely see shades of a future Batman director when I watched Metal Gear Solid.
While Metal Gear Solid didn't try anything new with the franchise, it still came up as a winner. The cast and crew won, the studio won, even half of the fans won. The other half who wanted a fresh story? Not so much.
No comments:
Post a Comment