During the height of the Cold War, a stoic soldier trained in stealth combat overcame technologically superior foes on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Africa. No, this isn’t the story of John Rambo or Jason Bourne – though you’d be forgiven for assuming as much. It’s the hard-boiled tale of one Solid Snake, the heroic lone wolf at the heart of video game auteur Hideo Kojima’s wildly popular Metal Gear games.
A self-proclaimed film buff, Kojima’s ludography is shot through with cinematic influences. In Metal Gear, underdog squadrons are thrust into high-stakes missions à la The Guns of Navarone. More recently, Death Stranding’s extended cutscenes rival the storytelling of the best Hollywood movies.
By the looks of things, Kojima was raised on a pop-culture diet of canonical war films, mecha anime, and classic sci-fi. These cinematic touchstones have clearly bled into his games. He previously revealed that the character of Snake is named after Kurt Russell’s iconic anti-hero, Snake Plissken, from John Carpenter’s Escape From New York and Escape from L.A. movies.
So, it’s no surprise that Kojima holds strong opinions about the films and shows he regularly consumes, which he is prone to dishing out on X.
What is surprising is that Kojima’s watchlist has turned him into somewhat of a film critic du jour. Well, at least for film Twitter, a polarised sub-culture where, on any given week, an A-lister can become persona non grata (right now it’s Bradley Cooper’s turn for his Oscar-baity performance in Maestro).
Over the years, Kojima has lauded award winners like Parasite, revisited masterpieces like Blade Runner, and praised Keanu Reeves’ magnetism and star power. His tweets, which range from mini-threads to lengthy single posts to bite-sized reviews, read like the musings of a cinephile in love with the artform. Other times, he simply posts the title of the film he’s watched along with an image.
i’m learning the kojima scale.
— laura 🦠 (@ecto_fun) March 6, 2024
“just watched blank.” - hated it.
positive review under 280 characters - liked it.
positive review long enough for “show more” - really liked it.
positive review with exclamation points and/or emojis - LOVED it https://t.co/mkkQnpym2m
X has latched on to his output. The 3.7 million followers he has on the platform aren’t just there to hear about his new games. As he states in his bio: “70% of my body is made of movies.”
In recent months, the obsession with Kojima’s pop culture reviews have reached fever pitch. Fans eagerly await his next missive on the latest blockbuster or box office bomb. After Kojima simply tweeted that he’d caught the comic-book movie stinker Madame Web, one Twitter user created a scale to decipher his reviews that went viral.
Movies that received one-sentence reviews from Hideo Kojima
— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) March 2, 2024
• Madame Web
• The Marvels
• Indiana Jones 5
• Super Mario Bros
• Captain Marvel
• Pacific Rim 2
• The Mummy (2017)
• Jumanji 2
• Fantastic Beasts 2
• 65 pic.twitter.com/OGX9aLTNfq
In this perceived hierarchy, a vague “just watched” tweet means Kojima probably “hated” the movie or show. A positive review under 280 characters equals a thumbs-up, while a lengthier post is a sign that he “really liked it”. And, if Kojima throws in some exclamation points and emojis on top, that's the equivalent of a five-star review.
Even Hollywood is starting to take note. Just this week, the influential film industry publication Variety covered Kojima’s reaction to Dune 2, that rare creature in the movie jungle that has enraptured critics and audiences alike.
Based on the Kojima scale, it’s safe to say that the video game creator loved the fantasy blockbuster. In fact, he said it would act as a bulwark against the rise of streaming services, which Hollywood stalwarts are afraid will drive the masses away from communal cinemas to their isolationary phones and laptops.
Even as a movie buff, I was beginning to think it was time for me to start watching movies on my smartphone or tablet. However, when I watched "Dune: Part 2”, my rigid ways of thinking crumbled like sand! It meticulously depicts the non-existent world of Arrakis, bringing it to… https://t.co/irVAxRfNyK
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) March 6, 2024
“This film shouts, ‘This is cinema!’ and provides the ‘spice’ that we need to live,” Kojima proclaimed. “This masterpiece of Denis [Villeneuve] will likely become a ‘resistance’ that will significantly delay the spread of subscription services.”
So, what’s next for Kojima? Should he give up his day job as the pre-eminent creator of original games and start churning out film reviews for a newspaper? Maybe he should join Letterboxd, the social media app for terminally online film enthusiasts.
Well, in typical Kojima fashion, he has something bigger up his sleeve. For his next act, the visionary game developer is adapting Death Stranding into a live-action film. “Our film will be for anyone who loves cinema,” Kojima declared late last year. “We are creating a ‘Death Stranding’ universe that has never been seen before, achievable only through the medium of film, it will be born.”
Another cinematic universe? It sounds like Kojima will be right at home in Hollywood.
