Worsemovies

No matter what this cover claims, Mark Hammil is NOT Guyver!

This movie starts unassumingly enough with a Japanese scientist facing a vicious gang lead by none other by the legendary Michael Berryman. Scientist does the only logical think he can do in this situation, ru… TURNS INTO A FREAKIN’ GILLMAN!? That doesn’t really help him much ’cause it seems that every single member of the gang has a “turn into a monster” switch. The poor dude never had a chance.

Little while later the detective is on the case, we know he’s the detective ’cause he is Max aka Mark Hamill with MUSTACHES! Although that makes him look a bit more like an old pervert when I think about it. He finds the daughter of the scientist in a local Martial Arts club and that’s where we meet our hero! Yes, the main character of this film is not by any means an SF/ Geek Culture legend like Hamill, nope! It’s an irritating blond highschooler called Sean who’s just this moment getting  his ass kicked five ways to Sunday by a long haired dude who strangely wears a combination of Aikido hakama and Metallica shirt (it seems some things have changed sense the last time I went into the Aikido dojo).

The girl Mizky (Vivian Wu) takes the news surprisingly well, but I believe that’s just because of the actress’s inability to display any kind of convincing emotional reaction. Hamill takes her to the murder scene hoping the girl would provide any kind of clue and Sean fallows them. Maybe he’s jealous or something? Anyway trying to eavesdrop he stumbles onto a strange metal object and decides to keep it. A bit later he decides to pay Mizky Segawa a visit ’cause she promised him a date- despite the fact that her father just died hours ago!!! Now this Sean is either an asshole or a moron… or quite possibly both! I already said that he is a terrible lead character, right?

Disappointed he heads back and he’s luck doesn’t’ get any better. He gets ambushed  by a street gang. And their leader is no one other than Aikido- Metalhead dude. He decides to continue what he started in the dojo, with a bit of backup this time. Son tries to defend himself but he’s martial arts are so pathetic that he almost gets killed but than something extraordinary happens… the alien bio- armor Guyver activates and merges with him and despite a bit dodgy effects suit is pretty cool. He of course completely destroys criminals but stays on the street dumbfounded trying to realize what the hell just happened.

Are all gangs really this retarded?

In the meantime the evil director of Kronos Corporation (David Gale who you may remember from such films as the Re-animator and Bride of the Reanimator)  is giving Berryman  a lesson for his failure to deliver the Guyver which he calls the most powerful weapon in the universe. It turns out that Lisker (Berryman) brought him a suitcase that contained no Guyver (but it did have a broken toaster in it). Having no other clues he orders him to find Sagava’s daughter and bring her to him. Also he displays his supreme evil by smashing a previously mentioned toaster!

We all know it’s all toasters fault!

Hamill is connecting the dots back to Kronos Corp. but other policeman (being stupid or corrupt) are trying to stop him. He disobeys and continues his investigation. Sean who can at this point only be described as a stalker again visits the girl again and after seeing she is completely heartbroken asks the immortal question “May is something wrong? Man, are you dense, retarded or something? You fallowed her to the murder scene last night, don’t you remember!? Of course he uses the opportunity to try to get in her pants. Unfortunately a neighbor comes barging in and he runs away seeing his opportunity for sex is gone. He returns a bit later with some food hoping for another chance with Mizky but founds Berryman and the his band of merry Zoanoids kidnapping her. Also Berryman shows that he is the hit with the ladies He offers a trip to Brazil to the muscled up lady with crazy hair and she practically jumps all over him. Sean doesn’t know what to do but then Max appears out of  nowhere and spoils everything for the mutant team. Seeing they are getting away the already pathetic rapper dude transforms into a freakin’ JAR- JAR BINKS ON STEROIDS!

Hamill asks the girl what is happening and she screams “They want the Guyver” And the Guyver is right beside her without her even knowing it- what an incredible series of coincidences! All of the goons go all Moster Squad-y and that’s the moment when you finally realize how much they dropped the ball with the monster costumes. I mean, this movie is almost exclusively based on monsters a and this is what we get? Rejects from a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers show? That’s kinda’ tragic.

You Don’t Mess with the Zoanoids!

After beating the living crap out of Hammil they concentrate on the girl and Sean and finally unleashes his power. Well, not really first he fails even at that but than after getting Hulk mad he proclaims “I am the Guyver” and truly becomes one. Bio-armored Warrior vs Monster- OK, that’s something that will finally make this movies watchable, right? WRONG! Jar- Jar start rapping like a 5 year old white kid challenging Guyver to fight and at that point all I want to do is turn off this film and never speak of it again. For some strange reason we decide to soldier on and when fighting finally starts it’s half- way decent. Some fancy karate moves , some of those Aikido take downs that he failed to learn in the beginning, some unnecessary and poorly placed acrobatics but all in all fun scenes. But then when they finally have something going for them they make the scene last way too long and in the end you root for the bad guys when they finally overwhelm the Guyver and… KILL HIM? Hellyeah!

And that’s all she wrote. At least he can hope, right?

I guess this is the end? Nope... Misky wakes up in the chambers of Cronos Corp. and the evil  and the old man, director of the Kronos Corp is touching her. This is disturbing. He then shows her a few things, mostly Zoanoids, genetically altered human beings in tubes. She seems too stupid to understand any of that.

She’s a keeper, that one!

He envisions Zoanoids ruling the world, Zoltoid in the white house and such (Obama anyone?). He demands information on Guyver and then starts touching her once again. She tries to run but he takes her to Dr. East who is strangely the same person as Dr. West (from Re-Animator). She spots Hammil in one of those tubes and starts crying.They try to blackmail her in revealing the secret to activating Guyver right there but she kicks the old pervert in the nuts, grabs the Guyver (in it’s portable form ofc) and starts running away. Some comical scenes ensue and one of the mosters swalows the Guyver. Evil director is loosing his mind again but Guyver comes out… now fully grown and regenerated- he freakin’ regenerated the whole human being! How that human being fit into the stomach of that monster we will never know…  Two of them set free Max (Hammil) and then we have some Road Runner/ Wile E Coyote runing scenes spliced with a bit more Guyver on Monsters action. Guyver finally defeats the whole Ziltoid gang but Hammil ends up turning into one himself. Just think about it, you get Star Wars alumni for your SF/ Action flick, you give him supporting rule and then you turn him into a freakin’ talking bug.., that dies immediately after transformation.

No, you are not stoned, Mark Hammil did in fact turn into a giant bug!

Their mourning is interrupted by the evil director aka  ZOALORD and after demanding Guyver armor one more time he decides to take it himself… BY TURNING INTO A GIANT RED DINOSAUR/ SPIDER HYBRID! Now this confrontation could theoretically be exciting but it mostly happens off camera because of the budget limits and it ends as B- Movies always end, with a really big explosion (those at least are not expensive. Minsky and Sean look at one another, he takes off the Guyver armor and in the process ends up butt naked. Japanese girl seems overjoyed by that*. They walk into the “sunset” but then we see two shadowy figures in the background. Those turn out to be the corrupt cop (from the beginning) and Jar- Jar Binks Rapper (why, oh why is this man still alive?). Cop decides to give a little jab to Jar- Jar and he seems exhilarated by that fact- possibly ’cause he’ll have opportunity to spill a bit more of his lame rhymes while torturing somebody. Than the move thankfully ends. Whoa, this was a hard one- I can honestly say that we barely made it.

Happy ending?

Verdict: First problem of this movie I already pointed out and that’s sub- par costumes. But just as big the problem is the main character. You should root for the hero but this  guy, this guy you want to see dead, possibly by decapitation. Good news-  of course that actually happens during this movie (unfortunately it doesn’t stay that way). This is what happens when American’s try their hand in adaptation of manga/anime 20 years before the effects for doing so were available!

Live action Guyver with it’s bloody and crazy fights scenes could have been a cool flick but this just looks like a adaptation of Power Rangers with just one Ranger and fifth of the budget! Better waste your time on the original manga/ anime, it’s leaps and bounds above this monstrosity.

Trivia: Director of this movie Steve Wang actually did end up working on Power Rangers: The Movie 4 years later.  Producers hired him due to being the only American experienced in making this type of movies but after he started suggesting various ways to “make film better” they quickly changed their minds and fired him.