...And that was because I was 12 and hadn't read the original Yoshiki Takaya Manga "Bio-booster Armor Guyver" back then. 1992's "The Guyver" was the first American adaptation of Takaya's original Japanese work, which had already been made into a 12-episode OVA on its native soil.
The original 12-episode OVA condensed much of Takaya's material, thus eliminating a lot of the deeper sci-fi themes and moments for the characters to develop beyond simple comic book caricatures. The 1992 "Guyver" film boasts some incredible creature effects, cool-looking monsters and a formidable cast of "B"-movie talent, but it didn't do much to really further Takaya's reputation in the United States, since like the first OVA, a lot of themes in the movie were shed and replaced by typical sci-fi monster movie elements and the camp humor present in most American "B"-pictures.
Perhaps the blame falls on the co-directing team of Screaming Mad George and Steve Wang and screenwriter Jon Purdy. They bring much of the camp of American "B"-movies to an amazing piece of Japanese art that was better known for its deep characters, chilling near-apocalyptic themes and brilliant sci-fi narrative, not for any stupid camp humor. Of course this undermines the seriousness of and shows an utter lack of respect for Takaya's original material, even though I'm not a stickler for accuracy when it comes to adaptations but these sorts of changes really bugged me.
The first live-action film features some of the same basic elements of the story, including characters and history, but that's about it. In Los Angeles, a lab scientist is tracked down and killed by the Chronos Corporation's legion of Zoanoids, human mutants that have the ability to transform into monster foot-soldiers at will. The scientist had stolen the "guyver" unit, an alien suit of armor, from Chronos's lab, and had planned on delivering it to CIA agent Max Reed (Mark Hamill).
Balcus (the late David Gale) is the head of Chronos, and has instructed his Zoanoid henchmen (including original "The Hills Have Eyes" Michael Berryman as Zoanoid chief henchman Lisker and Jimmy Walker as Zoanoid foot-soldier Striker, the latter of whom provides much of the comic relief) to go out and search for the missing Guyver unit by first starting with the scientist's daughter Mizki (Vivian Wu). But it has already fallen into the hands of college student Sean Barker (Jack Armstrong), who accidentally activates the unit after being attacked by gang members and is transformed into an exponentially enhanced mechanized warrior with an awesome array of powers and weapons. Now he must use the Guyver's abilities to fend off Chronos and its legion of evil Zoanoids.
While "The Guvyer" does boast some incredible special effects, you can also see some of the attempts at mimicking the mood of then-recent comic book adaptations like "Batman" (1989) or "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" (1990), much rather than its own source material. But the camp humor destroys much of what could have been really good about the movie. The acting is pretty poor, the dialogue hokey and "B"-name heavyweights such as Mark Hamill and Jimmy Walker don't really seem to have a lot to do, although there is one oddly-placed comic scene where Striker crashes in on the set of a monster movie and is confronted by scream queen Linnea Quigley (they don't call her a scream queen for nothing, you know).
Better to save the best for this film's 1994 sequel "Guyver: Dark Hero" and the 2005 26-episode OVA series, both of which are not only better, but are more serious, more violent, and more faithful to the Manga.
4/10
The original 12-episode OVA condensed much of Takaya's material, thus eliminating a lot of the deeper sci-fi themes and moments for the characters to develop beyond simple comic book caricatures. The 1992 "Guyver" film boasts some incredible creature effects, cool-looking monsters and a formidable cast of "B"-movie talent, but it didn't do much to really further Takaya's reputation in the United States, since like the first OVA, a lot of themes in the movie were shed and replaced by typical sci-fi monster movie elements and the camp humor present in most American "B"-pictures.
Perhaps the blame falls on the co-directing team of Screaming Mad George and Steve Wang and screenwriter Jon Purdy. They bring much of the camp of American "B"-movies to an amazing piece of Japanese art that was better known for its deep characters, chilling near-apocalyptic themes and brilliant sci-fi narrative, not for any stupid camp humor. Of course this undermines the seriousness of and shows an utter lack of respect for Takaya's original material, even though I'm not a stickler for accuracy when it comes to adaptations but these sorts of changes really bugged me.
The first live-action film features some of the same basic elements of the story, including characters and history, but that's about it. In Los Angeles, a lab scientist is tracked down and killed by the Chronos Corporation's legion of Zoanoids, human mutants that have the ability to transform into monster foot-soldiers at will. The scientist had stolen the "guyver" unit, an alien suit of armor, from Chronos's lab, and had planned on delivering it to CIA agent Max Reed (Mark Hamill).
Balcus (the late David Gale) is the head of Chronos, and has instructed his Zoanoid henchmen (including original "The Hills Have Eyes" Michael Berryman as Zoanoid chief henchman Lisker and Jimmy Walker as Zoanoid foot-soldier Striker, the latter of whom provides much of the comic relief) to go out and search for the missing Guyver unit by first starting with the scientist's daughter Mizki (Vivian Wu). But it has already fallen into the hands of college student Sean Barker (Jack Armstrong), who accidentally activates the unit after being attacked by gang members and is transformed into an exponentially enhanced mechanized warrior with an awesome array of powers and weapons. Now he must use the Guyver's abilities to fend off Chronos and its legion of evil Zoanoids.
While "The Guvyer" does boast some incredible special effects, you can also see some of the attempts at mimicking the mood of then-recent comic book adaptations like "Batman" (1989) or "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" (1990), much rather than its own source material. But the camp humor destroys much of what could have been really good about the movie. The acting is pretty poor, the dialogue hokey and "B"-name heavyweights such as Mark Hamill and Jimmy Walker don't really seem to have a lot to do, although there is one oddly-placed comic scene where Striker crashes in on the set of a monster movie and is confronted by scream queen Linnea Quigley (they don't call her a scream queen for nothing, you know).
Better to save the best for this film's 1994 sequel "Guyver: Dark Hero" and the 2005 26-episode OVA series, both of which are not only better, but are more serious, more violent, and more faithful to the Manga.
4/10