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The Guyver

The Guyver (1991)

March. 18,1991
|
4.9
|
PG-13
| Action Science Fiction

FBI agent Max Reed witnesses Dr. Tetsu Segawa - a researcher for the mysterious Chronos Corporation - being murdered. Dr. Segawa had stolen an alien device known as "The Guyver" from Chronos. College student Sean Barker, whose girlfriend's father was Dr. Segawa, finds the Guyver's hiding spot while watching the forensic team investigating the crime scene.

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Cubussoli
1991/03/18

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

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ShangLuda
1991/03/19

Admirable film.

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Maleeha Vincent
1991/03/20

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

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Marva
1991/03/21

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

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MaximumMadness
1991/03/22

Oh, I love you, 1990's media and entertainment! You're so silly and you don't know any better!In 1985, artist and writer Yoshiki Takaya created the popular franchise "Bio-Boosted Armor: Guyver"- which started out as an ongoing Manga comic about a teenage boy who inadvertently bonds with an alien weapon known as the "Guyver"- a bio-mechanical symbiotic suit that grants him superhuman abilities. He uses the suit to battle the "Zoanoids"- evil shape-shifting creatures who work for the nefarious Cronos Corporation, and are trying to take over the world. At its core, the story was weak but the comics and subsequent anime adaptations were decent fun. In many ways, it was almost like "Power Rangers" for adults- non-stop action, gooey creatures, alien weapons and plenty of martial-arts battles between archetypal heroes and villains... only with brutal, bloody hard-core violence and some sex appeal! It's media junk- food... but tasty media junk-food.So it makes sense that it ended up being the center of one of those early attempts at Americanizing and re-adapting a Japanese property for Western Audiences with directors "Screaming Mad George" and Steve Wang's 1991 release "The Guyver." It was a simple story that should have worked well and easily translated from one culture to another. After all... it's a classic tale of good-guy vs bad-guy. What could go wrong? ...Well, a lot as it turns out.While by no means a complete train-wreck and with a handful of engaging and effective sequences, the American film adaptation ultimately left quite a bit to be desired due to some key fundamental issues. These issues mainly pertaining to its lightning-fast pace and a mournfully inconsistent tone that never found the proper balance between adventure, drama and comedy. Viewing the film is often akin to changing channels on a television for an hour-and-a-half on a slow afternoon- you'll see quite a bit to like for brief snippets, but it doesn't really work together and it's not necessarily going to leave you feeling fulfilled when all is said and done.Jack Armstrong stars as Sean Barker, a sort-of geeky but likable enough protagonist who studies martial arts and has a thing for fellow student Mizky, played by Vivian Wu. One night, he stumbles on a mysterious alien artifact that inadvertently latches onto his body, turning him into "The Guyver"- a Bio-Boosted superhero. As it turns out, Mizky's father was actually a shape-shifting "Zoanoid" and was killed trying to smuggle the unit away from the nefarious Cronos Corporation, who sought to use it to enslave humanity. And so, Sean must try and use the Guyver armor to protect Mizky from the other monstrous "Zoanoids" who come looking for the unit and seek to eliminate all loose ends- including the two of them! They also get help from a cop whose investigating the murder of Mizky's father, and is played by Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill.I believe that this particular property could work for American audiences if done properly, but I don't think that was the case here. This was one of the earliest attempts at adapting a Manga/Anime franchise for American audiences, and you get the feeling there was a lot of studio meddling and second-guessing behind-the- scenes. The violence and general "weirdness" of the original stories is largely absent, action is kept to a minimum, and there's way too much focus on broad slapstick gags and pop-cultural humor in almost every scene. It's almost as if everyone involved got cold feet and decided not to commit to faithfully adapting the story out of fear it was too "weird"... and so they compensated by trying to throw in a lot of out-of-place jokes and gags to win the audience over. That's the main problem here... the failure to commit to the material. Going into "self-parody" territory as this film does is a risky move and often doesn't pay off. Thus, the film lacks drama, excitement and intrigue for too much of the run- time.This isn't helped by ludicrously quick-paced editing that gives the film virtually no breathing room. Having seen several of the anime adaptations in my younger years, the film seems to try and cram several volumes of the original story into a single package while also doing its own things at times, and it doesn't really flow too well. You feel like you're watching a much larger story that's been edited down to only hit on key points, robbing the movie of subtlety and nuance. If the movie had an extra twenty minutes of so to play around with, it might have worked. But not as an 88-minute feature.Still, the movie isn't a complete failure. Several cast members are a lot of fun- particularly Hamill who is giving it has all, and a memorable and delightfully over-the-top turn from David Gale as the evil "Fulton Balcus"- the big-bad head of the Cronos Corporation. The practical effects used to bring the Guyver to life are awe-inspiring and still hold up well to this day... its a fantastic design and looks like it was pulled straight from the pages of the original comic. And the action is a great deal of fun, with well-choreographed fights and some fancy moves unlike anything we had quite seem at the time.As it stands... I don't hate "The Guyver." I saw it when I was getting a bit too old to like "Power Rangers" but not old enough to appreciate more adult fare, and it was a good transitional film to watch. It's a heck of a movie for a 12-year-old, and I think older children will get a kick out of it. And it does have some good aspects to it. It just doesn't take itself seriously enough and has some glaring production issues that will hinder its appeal for older audiences or fans of the existing franchise. I give it a sub-par but watchable 4 out of 10.

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Foreverisacastironmess
1991/03/23

Yep that is correct, I did love this flick when I was about eight or so, my favourite Zoanoid was the bad stereotype jive-talking one with the big lips and the bling, I thought he and his...rap was the absolute coolest ever!! Well time doth make fools of us all and some movies you just plain outgrow. I still love many pictures that I did when I was little, but this to me does not hold up at all. I'd love to enjoy it for what it is, but the thing is, what it is happens to completely suck! Who'd think a movie with nothing but an alien cyborg fighting monsters could be so boring? I mean it is a little fun and entertaining but only in stops and starts, I mostly find it to be a tedious watch. From the beginning there's a noticeable lack of momentum to it. And the tone is completely wrong, rather than being all sleek and dark and cool, it's all a bit go-go Guyver rangers! It feels like a kid-friendly movie but like it's seriously forcing itself to be that way? when the visual style and atmosphere of everything is clearly crying out for something decidedly more gritty and harder-edged and dark, with some well placed swears and maybe even a little light nudity, and it was begging for copious amounts of blood guts and severed limbs to be flying in all directions as a result of the Guyver's deadly arm blades and firepower. It would have been improved so much if they'd only done away with the painful attempts at slapstick, and also if they'd bothered to invest in some decent fight choreography, because most of the time the Guyver just picks enemies up and throws them around. And get used to those f***ing scene-to-scene transmissions! The way the film slices itself in half and blares out that annoying noise is so jarring and stupid. The cartoony comic book-esc elements and the tone are what really murders this film for me. The good guys don't exactly leap out and grab you, Vivian Wu as an actress was really terrible! And Jack Armstrong was fine enough but he was dull and didn't make the character of the Guyver compelling at all.. It does have some positive aspects, like what's definitely the best thing about the movie whether you love it or hate it are the practical creature suits and makeup effects. The Zoanoid suits look great, they all blink and have expressions and have a great scaly skin texture, and the Guyver suit is an excellently presented piece of work that's quite striking. A brilliant job was done of recreating the look of it from the manga, it's near-perfect, right down to the steam vents. It's also pretty spectacular and icky when Mark Hammel painful transforms into a giant cricket, and dies! I'm also still quite fond of the last battle where the Cronos president changes into a humongous demonic lizard beast that stomps after the Guyver in a sequence that I find oddly similar to when Howard the Duck takes on the Dark Overlord! The Zoalord is similar in design to another creature that Screaming Mad George designed for the Full Moon movie Arena. And that leads me to David Gale, who I thought was terrific as the tyrannical leader of the monster organisation bent on world domination, his was the only character that wasn't dull, dim-witted or ultra-thin. The movie didn't deserve him, he steals and just really livens up every scene that he's in. What a brilliant character actor, he could play a crazy villain like no one else I've ever seen, so sad that he passed away too soon.. I love when Jeffrey Combs pops up as Dr. East, an underling professor to the man who's head he once chopped off years earlier as Dr. West in the gory classic Re-Animator. Oh well in closing I don't think that this is something you can watch and then immediately love the thought of watching again any time soon, because to me its bad points far outweigh its good ones. Horribly mishandled, it's truly a bad adaptation of an awesome franchise and character.

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Sean Lamberger
1991/03/24

Among the worst rubber-suit monster movies I've ever seen, this abomination from the early '90s can't decide if it wants to be a corny kids' special or a gross late-night horror picture. Straddling both in lieu of a decision, it lifts a gratingly naive cast and absurdly simple dialog from the former, then the nasty creature effects and wanton violence from the latter. I'd be remiss not to mention the awesomely overblown slash cuts and stock synth sound effects that accompany every change in scenery. Basically this is action porn, with a sketchy storyline and intensely awful acting only present as a means of transport from one slugfest to the next. Problem is, between the imagination-free choreography and the awkward, unwieldy makeup, the fights are just as bad as everything else. Mark Hammill, in one of his darkest days as a professional, dons a ridiculous mustache and over-sized leather jacket in a vain attempt to fit the part of a tough, grizzled detective. Like everything else thrown on the screen in this unmitigated disaster, it doesn't work.

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macrossman
1991/03/25

If you think this film was intended to be in the vain of its animated counterpart then you are clearly wrong as it's true formula can only be found in the filming conventions of most Japanese B movies, for example bad campy acting, simple narrative, bit of kung fu, bit of gore, bit of comedy, lots of dark lighting, rubber costumes coupled with funky man to mutant transformations. One might question the integrity of the acting or dialog but the fact is the cast were directed to cheese it up so as to fit into its genre and eastern heritage. The fighting scenes are a bit over the top but this is what Japanese B cult is all about. Dyn-o-mite!!!

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