The Guyver (1991) mini review

based on a comic
[4/10]

There doesn't seem to be a lot of manga-adapted non-Japanese films. The Guyver is one of the few.

If you're a comic fan, and you've never heard of this movie, there's probably two reasons. First, it's based on a Japanese comic, and second, it's just not that good. Actually, it was almost good enough to sit through once, but any accolades beyond that would be overdoing it. Mark Hamill has had a rather prolific voice career (he's done a ton of stuff, but my favorite is, of course, The Joker in Batman: The Animated Series ), but in The Guyver, he stars in another film disappointment. In the movie, he plays an agent for the CIA following up on some weird stuff going on at the Chronos Corporation. Come to find out, they are harboring an ancient secret. Aliens created mankind to be the perfect bio-weapons. A screen crawl at the beginning of the film gives the somewhat confusing history of how the aliens created some humans called Zoanoids that could change into "super monster soldiers", but also created the Guyver, a type of armor, which, when worn by a human, increases their natural abilities a hundredfold.

The movie ends up being nearly as hokey as that description makes it sound (Jimmy Walker is even cast as one of the villain's henchmen). But, with an attempted serious performance by all the "good guys", I can't decide if they're trying to play it straight, or just for laughs.



See it if you want to see some decent special effects or J.J. from Good Times playing a comic book villain.

Don't see it if it sounds like you'd rather just hear Mark Hamill's nearly awe-inspiring turn as The Joker in Justice League, Batman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, Batman: Gotham Knights, Superman: The Animated Series...