{"id":3880,"date":"2015-07-09T01:02:19","date_gmt":"2015-07-09T01:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/?p=3880"},"modified":"2015-07-09T01:04:24","modified_gmt":"2015-07-09T01:04:24","slug":"the-guyver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/?p=3880","title":{"rendered":"THE GUYVER!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Guyver<\/a><\/strong> ~ 1991, Screaming Mad George, Steve Wang, USA, Japan<\/p>\n

\"WgkqyQz\"<\/p>\n

The Guyver<\/em><\/strong> is a real roller coaster. When you first hear about it, you like “An America adaptation of a Japanese Ultraman<\/strong>\u00a0style superhero? That sounds like it’s going to suck really, really aggressively.” But then you find out it has Jeffery Combs<\/strong> in it, and you’re like “Oh…\u00a0Okay.\u00a0That’s kinda cool.” Next, at\u00a0five minutes into the film, you’re thinking “Whoa, this is awesome! How is this movie not huge?”\u00a0But then, as the credits roll, you think “Oh. That’s why.” After that, you’re just really sad.<\/p>\n

As you’ve no doubt guessed, The Guyver<\/em> starts strong- really strong. Right away the movie does its best to\u00a0win you over by putting its very best attribute front and center-\u00a0that\u00a0being\u00a0film’s numerous and\u00a0remarkable creature effects. Suitomation, animatronics, makeup effects, holy smokes, you guys, The Guyver<\/em> does all of this, and it does it\u00a0WELL. Rad monsters abound, and\u00a0these are the sort of practical effects that Hollywood realy\u00a0doesn’t want you to know are even possible. Too bad, Hollywood, The Guyver<\/em> spilled the beans. We now know that not every movie has to be Mark Wahlberg standing in front of a green screen for three hours, you’re more than capable of making physical effects that actually look awesome, you just don’t want to, and I’m sick of your bullshit. Go to hell, and take your\u00a0lowsy\u00a0CG with you.<\/p>\n

But I digress.<\/p>\n

Although\u00a0The Guyver<\/em>\u00a0goes off with a bang, it has absolutely no stamina, like a long\u00a0distance runner that hauls ass at top speed for four minutes, topples over\u00a0sideways, and never even comes within eyeshot of the finish line. One gets the feeling that directors Screaming Mad George and Steve Wang (Wait, really?)\u00a0knew things weren’t quite panning out, and so\u00a0from early on\u00a0we see them\u00a0attempting to compensate… With humor.\u00a0The Guyver<\/em>\u00a0becomes progressively zanier as it lags on, but its exhaustingly short on legitimate comedy, and\u00a0shitty jokes are a real ineffective consolation prize when you’re watching a film that should, by any and all logic, be epic as hell. And The Guyver<\/em> is NOT epic. Films like this needs a big third act, something that would take place on a space ship, or hopping across rooftops trying to repel an alien invasion, Avengers<\/strong><\/em> <\/a>style- what we get instead is a made-for-TV budgeted costume drama where the bulk of the action takes place in\u00a0one of two abandoned warehouses,\u00a0or in\u00a0a secret, underground laboratory which looks very\u00a0similar to an abandoned warehouse with a\u00a0\u00a0few computers scattered around. Your eyes will try to call in sick\u00a0twenty minutes into this\u00a0virtual snoozestraveganza of bland locations and disinteresting bullshit, and you won’t hold it against them. The\u00a0Guyver<\/em> gives us everything it has in the first ten minutes, and after that, it flounders about wildly.<\/p>\n

It does have a virtual Sega Dreamcast of beloved genre actors, however, which helps.\u00a0In addition to the aforementioned Jeffrey “Herbert West” Combs<\/strong>, here playing a scientist called “Dr. East” (cute), we also have Mark Hamill<\/strong> (who is NOT the lead), Michael Berryman<\/strong>, David Gale<\/strong>, and, most importantly, Jimmy Walker<\/strong>, of Good Times fame. Walker plays a character called Striker<\/strong>, who is, more or less, the comic relief,\u00a0which means that\u00a0he\u00a0a shit load of screen time.\u00a0At one\u00a0point, in\u00a0an example of truly desperate and\u00a0shameless pandering, Striker busts out Walker’s classic sitcom catch phrase, “Dyno-mite,”<\/strong> which is really\u00a0sad. It’s worth mentioning that the Striker character\u00a0periodically raps (horribly), and also\u00a0transforms into a monster\u00a0which looks something\u00a0like what you’d get if you fed Jar Jar after midnight.<\/p>\n

\"jarYeah… That’s him on the right… I’m not proud of myself for gathering this screen shot, by the way.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Other than the effects, and the wealth of familiar faces, absolutely nothing in The Guyver<\/em> shines. The music is obnoxious, the characters are lame, and the actual\u00a0lead actor is one of the blandest humans I’ve ever had the displeasure of knowing.\u00a0In addition, the editing is actually kind of obnoxious, this is the first\u00a0film\u00a0in recorded history which has somehow\u00a0engineered a transition effect\u00a0even more objectionable than the\u00a0oft reviled Star Wipe. I’d say the film is worth watching for that alone, and you’ll know it when you see it.\u00a0Afterwards, however, slide this puppy back in the Netflix envelope from\u00a0whence it came and part ways with it forever, as\u00a0this is a classic cinematic\u00a0wasted opportunity that you don’t need to sit through.<\/p>\n

D+<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Guyver ~ 1991, Screaming Mad George, Steve Wang, USA, Japan The Guyver is a real roller coaster. When you first hear about it, you like “An America adaptation of a Japanese Ultraman\u00a0style superhero? That sounds like it’s going to suck really, really aggressively.” But then you find out it has Jeffery Combs in it, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[930,1286,1285,147,1291,1290,244,335,1289,1282,1288,1284,1281,1287,1280,1283,1092],"class_list":["post-3880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-930","tag-awesome-practical-effects","tag-cg-can-go-to-hell","tag-d","tag-david-gale","tag-good-times","tag-japan","tag-jeffrey-combs","tag-jimmy-walker","tag-mark-hamill","tag-michael-berryman","tag-not-every-movie-needs-to-be-mark-wahlberg-standing-in-front-of-a-green-screen-for-three-hours","tag-screaming-mad-george","tag-the-avengers","tag-the-guyver","tag-ultraman","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3880"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4272,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3880\/revisions\/4272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}