Metal Gear Solid: Philanthropy
Metal Gear Solid: Philanthropy - Italian fan-made successor to the original PSX game, and damn fine considering it's an entirely amateur production. The finished product has a feel that's very similar to the games - the visuals and lighting, the ADR voice-overs, even the writing - and it's impressive, considering what it's made from.
If this was a professional, cinematic film it'd look and sound rubbish. But if you accept it for what it is, the quality's remarkably high. Competent CG, as good as can be expected from a private production; excellent filming and post-production, with colours and sounds well-balanced throughout; and relatively well-acted, with characters who look the part and voice actors who've done their jobs well. Good hardware and locations too.
There're a couple of in-jokes, like a fleeting appearance by an Ape Escape monkey, but aside from that the humour's pretty thin on the ground. The material's reasonably grim, though, so that's forgivable. The post-credits voice actor goof-offs are funny enough on their own.
Plot-wise, the film treads both familiar and new ground. While it follows on from the first MGS, the plot exists independent of the games that came afterward without actually contradicting them. Snake, working with his anti-Metal Gear group Philanthropy, parachutes into an unstable East European state to extract a US senator with ties to ArmsTech, sole remaining developer of Metal Gear weapons. He's teamed up with a ragtag bunch of elite military misfits, an armed fortress is infiltrated, and several flavours of :bou::bou::bou::bou: start to go down. In addition to the titular walking army tanks, there're some as-yet-unexplained mystical elements, another trait common to the games.
It'll be interesting to see whether the creators find the time and incentive to continue the story - I could see this one getting pretty interesting.
Oh, they also managed to nab a performance from the songstress who performed the game's Gaelic theme song, which is a neat bonus.
