2. Christopher Nolan
Why's it a good idea? The "it" director of recent times, Christopher Nolan is no stranger to the science-fiction/action movie and is actually Hideo Kojima's personal first choice for director (like he gets a say in all that).
Inception, arguably Nolan's best work, starred the dreamy Leonardo DiCaprio in a movie about dreams and the fact that you can infiltrate those dreams and go inside several layers of more dreams to get... uh... what? Anyway, it was also about stealth, which
Metal Gear Solid has in droves. And there's no doubting that a Solid Snake versus Metal Gear REX fight conducted under Nolan's "let's do it without CGI" mentality would be great to watch on an IMAX screen. Although if you've seen REX in action, you know that rendering such a mean metallic beast without the aid of CGI is absolutely not going to happen. But, hey, Nolan used computers to make that pretty European city flip up and impress Ellen Page, so the man can use CGI, too. Nolan's is also great at transforming stupid kiddie stuff into high-art. Remember Batman? It was all camp and there were catchphrases like "Holy jeepers!" and then he just came along and sucked the fun out of it and made it serious. For a franchise like
Metal Gear Solid, which is somehow deadly straight-faced and ridiculous geeky at the same time, Nolan seems perfectly suited to finding the right tone for a movie adaptation. Because let's face it: movies need to have a consistent tone if they're going to work, whereas video games can just kind of do whatever they want as long as they're fun to play. Nolan has proven himself skilled with both pulp and serious drama, and even excels when he blends these two genres together. He's also good at writing clunky dialogue in broad, philosophising strokes, almost as if it's been ripped from a video game and stuffed into Gary Oldman's mouth.
Why's it a bad idea? Nolan's cast the same group of actors in his movies for a while now, so we pretty much know exactly how it's going to go down. We're not sure if British actor Michael Caine is the right choice for Russian-born villain Revolver Ocelot, even if he'd deliver a hell of a monologue about that surgery and why he uses that particular make of revolver. And then what? Probably Tom Hardy as Vulcan Raven, coming off the back of his Bane gig, and then, I dunno,
pfft, Christian Bale as Solid Snake - he's already got the raspy voice down and everything. Finish off this fancy little reunion with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Otacon and you're saying
Metal Gear Solid: The Movie. Actually, that's all pretty good. Make it.