M:I - Dead Reckoning Proves A Metal Gear Solid Movie Can Work
After "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" blew everyone away at the box office, video game movies are hot, but the "Metal Gear Solid" film is still squarely stuck in limbo. The project has supposedly been in the works for years, with different names attached at various points. To be fair, Hideo Kojima's epic espionage saga isn't exactly a straightforward story to adapt. It's as much an anime as it is a video game series, and arguably more of a science fiction story than a spy thriller.
If you've played any of the "Metal Gear Solid" games, you know how wonderfully weird they are. There are nuclear mecha tanks, literal ghosts, vampires, super-soldier clones, and cyborg ninjas. And that's without even mentioning the old-timey cowboy who masterminds the whole plot. In short, it's a hodgepodge, but one that somehow blends its many diverse ideas into a cohesive whole that's greater than the sum of its parts. Amidst all the zany characters and supernatural twists, Kojima leverages sobering commentary on the global military-industrial complex, the weaponized potential of information control, and the dangers of AI.
All of those themes are present in "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One," a film that proves more than any other before how well a "Metal Gear Solid" movie could work. The seventh entry in Tom Cruise's stunt-packed saga is far from the anime tale that Kojima's franchise is, but it proves that weird sci-fi and serious spy fiction can coexist on the big screen — especially in our modern AI landscape.
What makes a Metal Gear Solid movie so hard to make?
For decades, video game adaptations were the laughingstock of Hollywood. That trend has changed, but a lot of games are still tough material for the big screen. Movies like "Sonic the Hedgehog" and "The Super Mario Bros. Movie," and even more mature fare like HBO's "The Last of Us" series are relatively simple in nature. Keep things close to the source material, and you've got smooth sailing to a quality kids' flick, zombie show, or what have you.
"Metal Gear Solid" doesn't work in that way because it's, well, way more complicated. Each major game covers wholly distinct territory, sometimes jumping decades backward and forward in time. Twists about characters' deaths or true identities are often held back for multiple installments, and every single character is a weird anomaly all their own.
The first "MGS" would definitely be the easiest to adapt because it keeps the weird stuff to a minimum and is a relatively focused spy story. Solid Snake's infiltration of the military compound on Shadow Moses Island could be done in 150 minutes, and aside from Psycho Mantis and Gray Fox, most of the supporting players aren't all that strange. But it's the strangeness that makes "Metal Gear Solid" interesting in the first place. To keep the spirit alive and create something truly memorable, an "MGS" movie would need to embrace the techno weirdness of the sequels. That's where "Mission: Impossible" comes in.
Mission: Impossible -- Dead Reckoning is basically MGS4
Maybe you've heard this one before. The world is on the edge of global chaos due to shrinking resources and a growing private military-industrial complex. A veteran agent is called in for one more mission to avert catastrophe, but things quickly go haywire, and he's all on his own — aside from the hacker friends he made along the way. On the opposite side of the story stands his opposite; his foil. A blonde enigma with unshakable coolness and a vision of a new world order. While they tangle in a dance of international espionage, a secret AI network looms in the shadows, censoring information and pulling strings. War, it seems, has changed.
That's the plot of "Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots." It's also the story of "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One." Sure, Revolver Ocelot is crusading against the AI in "MGS4," not on its behalf, but that's neither here nor there. Considering that "Dead Reckoning" ends with a climactic train crash à la "Uncharted 2: Among Thieves," it seems that Ralph McQuarrie and Tom Cruise were playing a lot of PlayStation 3 exclusives at the end of the 2000s.
The similarities aren't just fun to point out, though. They show how the weirder aspects of "Metal Gear Solid" can actually work on the big screen. Sure, you'll inevitably lose some of Kojima's anime sensibilities and all-around verbosity, but that weird AI doomsday story about the war economy and what it means to be a soldier? Still intact.
Dead Reckoning shows that weird sci-fi in a spy thriller can work
At its core, "Dead Reckoning Part One" is basically the same as every other "Mission: Impossible" movie. Its technology extends beyond reality, but the tone is still grounded in our world. Part of what makes Gabriel such an imposing villain is that he's not just some enemy spy. He's not a foreign agent or a greedy crook, but rather a zealot who truly believes he's ushering in a new world order.
It helps too that the Entity isn't handled like most AI in movies. Its powers are purely digital, but it's treated more like a demon or a god — a supernatural thing outside of our dimension with untold evil in mind. This blending of mythical storytelling and hard spy fiction elevates "Dead Reckoning," and it's the same basic combination that makes "Metal Gear Solid" so great. Well, that and a lot of anime influence, but you get the idea.
In other words, "Dead Reckoning" proves that you don't have to handle AI like it's a nuclear bomb in movies. Treating secret spy tech and hidden global conflicts like Tom Clancy would is fine, but it's also limiting. Why not expand the thematic horizons and bring in some biblical influence, some mythology, and a little bit of Cthulhu while we're at it? You don't have to sacrifice one for the other, which is what "Dead Reckoning" demonstrates so clearly.
Of course, a "Metal Gear Solid" movie would necessarily stray a lot further into the surreal.
How the Metal Gear Solid movie should take inspiration from Mission: Impossible
"Metal Gear Solid" is not "Mission: Impossible." It's far stranger, more complicated, and if we're being honest, way better. Even a Westernized "MGS" movie would need to have a fair share of weirdness, but that doesn't mean that it couldn't also take inspiration from "Dead Reckoning Part One."
For a movie with the budget necessary to pull "Metal Gear Solid" off, you have to appeal to a wide audience. That means trailer-ready action set pieces, some big-name actors, and a brand of intrigue that general audiences recognize. But within that framework, you can stuff in as many wacky villains and philosophical monologues as you want. It's that flavor that's always made "MGS" unique, and it can also be the recipe for a one-of-a-kind video game movie.
"Mission: Impossible" has shown that moviegoers love spy films that embrace science fiction. We've come to love surreal AI storylines and larger-than-life, idealist villains. Now, would "Metal Gear Solid" still be better as an animated series — à la Netflix's "Castlevania," for example? Most likely. You could fit each game in comfortably one season at a time, and the style is more appropriate for the games' anime inspiration. But a proper, live-action "Metal Gear Solid" movie could also be a massive hit, and "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One" has provided us with the proof. Move over, Ethan Hunt: it's Solid Snake's time now.