The Guyver

[cjobson]

Has anyone else seen The Guyver? wow. What a movie. BUT I LOVE IT!!!!

[the guyver]

[the guyver]

Here is a quick rundown of the story. A young man, Sean, stumbles upon "the unit" which transforms him into The Guyver. He now must defend himself and loved ones from the evil Zoanoids (monsters disguised as humans). Long story short .... a B-Movie version of The Power Rangers! An instant masterpiece!

[Torgo]

I had this on VHS at one point. I think that they've released a director's cut on DVD.  I remember it being pretty passable entertainment as a whole.

[felgekarp]

Saw it after seeing the Anime version, not a bad film, I've got the second one on dvd but I don't think it's as good as the first.

[the guyver]

I don't own the second one yet......can't seem to find it. I recently bought the first one to relight the flame. I used to watch it when I was a kid.

[Inyarear]

Oh yes, this flick would definitely be worth a four-slime review. It's got everything a B-movie is supposed to have: slightly cheesy special effects, a blending of slightly incompatible narrative styles, B-movie stalwarts like Michael Berryman, and a lot of general silliness, plus Mark Hamill!

I guess it is kind of like a B-grade Power Rangers (also adapted from Japanese source material, incidentally), except that in this movie, there's only one guy in a hero suit (thus keeping screen time for the annoying teammates to a bare minimum) and he gets to stab the bad guys, rip their limbs off, and break their necks instead of just metaphysically eliminating them. (Power Rangers would have been a lot more watchable if the characters on there had been shown doing things like that to all the annoyingly fake monsters the villains kept sending at them.)

It's also got just the right amount of "mature" content, too: no one's rolling around in the sack, but the hero and his girlfriend do get to have a tender moment when he emerges from his armor stark naked and she has to go find him some clothes; a little embarrassing, maybe, but it's actually a pretty romantic way to finish out a damsel-in-distress rescue. ("Uh, OK... Now that I've saved you from the big bad monsters, do you have any idea where I can find a decent pair of pants? I'm feeling kind of vulnerable here!")

It seems there is a director's cut, by the way. I've only seen the pan-and-scan tape. Might there be any deleted scenes on the DVD? There were a lot of parts in there where it seemed the editors might have cropped the script a little too much to leave more room for the overly long fight scenes. A scene I'd like to see would be Sean having to explain himself to the authorities when they show up to investigate the Chronos Corporation and he's wearing nothing but the lab coat Mizky found for him.

Officer: "Well, your sweetheart's not hurt too bad, son. Eh, I'll bet you enjoyed that date. That girl Mizky must be a real wildcat!"

Sean: "She's not like that! Mizky's a nice girl. It was those freaks in the lab who ripped all my clothes off."

Officer (winking): "Anything you say, pal! If she were the one wearing nothing but a lab coat, you and I'd be taking a ride to the station house right about now."

[D-Man]

It's amusing seeing such a knee-jerk reaction to something like this, comparing it to power rangers on sight.  There are a lot of  live-action shows and films in Japan that use guys in suits, that are so much better than power rangers... but here in the states, they ALWAYS have the ranger stigma attached to them no matter what...You've probably never heard of Garo, or Faiz, or Agito, all of which are tremendous, serious, layered stories spread out over a set number of episodes...but if they were anime instead of live action, you probably would have heard fanboys talking about them until you were sick of them by now. 

Anyway, I've only seen the anime version of Guyver, along with little bits of this, so I really can't give much insight into this specific film.  I may check it out though...anything with Mark Hamil co-starring is worth checking out at least once, I think. 

[Inyarear]

It's amusing seeing such a knee-jerk reaction to something like this, comparing it to power rangers on sight.

Yes, well, now you see why it's a good thing Saban's live-action Sailor Moon never aired. Actually, for all I know, the original Japanese versions of the Power Rangers might have been respectable shows. Some genres really do NOT do well when Americanized and made into live action shows, though, and this kind of anime is just such a genre.

Now this live action Guyver is not exactly what I'd call a good movie, but it delivers plenty of entertainment for the money. Heck, this movie seems practically tailored for a website such as ours! it's got people climbing into rubber costumes and beating the crap out of each other up on the screen. What more does a B-movie really need to have in it but that?

[D-Man]

All the power rangers shows were imports of a Japanese live action genre called Sentai (task force).  In general, they have better developed characters, better storylines, and there's an actual danger of death for the heroes, unlike in Power Rangers, because a few sentai characters have been killed off in their series over the years.  Generally, sentai is geared towards children, unlike some other live action series that have been coming out as of late... but it has something special...something I can't describe that is usually lost in the translation when these shows become PR series in the US.  Something that makes it so an adult can watch too, and not get the cringe factor they usually get with PR.

[DistantJ]

Thanks for bringing this movie up :) allow me to show you my humorous review/walkthrough of the film:



It's susprising how much of a hard time it can be finding a live action movie adaptation of something if they've changed the damn name. For some reason, while this movie was appropriately titled "The Guyver" in the USA, here in the UK they decided to name it "Mutronics". The back of the video case claims that "Mutronics" are "life-forms that can switch, at will, from human shape into terrifying creatures". Though throughout the movie they are referred to as Zoanoids.

Anyway, that's not important, what about the film? Let's take a look...

http://www.hooplanet.co.uk/article.php?subaction=showfull&id=1176395101&archive=&start_from=&ucat=8&

[Just Plain Horse]

"Mutronics", by L Ron Hubbard 

[Kooshmeister]

Karma! Karma for DistantJ! I love the scene where Balcus psychically makes Lisker beat himself up! 

Oh, and I noticed in the review for the movie, the guy at the end is just referred to as "a CIA agent." In fact, no single review for this film, ever, has actually ever referred to this character by his actual name, never spoken in dialogue, but given in the credits: Colonel Castle, played by Willard E. Pugh. So, anyone who wants to do a future review for the film, Max's boss is named Colonel Castle.

Oh, and the unnamed female Zoanoid dating Lisker, and the chubby Russian guy, are named Weber and Ramsey, respectively. (Truly I am the king of character names.)

[DistantJ]

Karma back to you too, dude :)

[Kooshmeister]

Another one of my favorite moments in the film is when we see that Balcus actually kept the toaster from the briefcase, and is shown using it while having breakfast at one point. He then gets mad at it when it burns his toast. 

Anybody else pick up on that?