YMMV / The Guyver

• Complete Monster: Fulton Balcus is the corrupt CEO of Chronos Corporation, and secretly the Zoalord, leader of the Zoanoids, and seeks to Take Over the World. Balcus has his chief scientist Dr. Segawa brutally murdered when he goes renegade and tries to have his daughter Mizky kidnapped, resulting in her neighbor's throat cut and her boyfriend Sean targeted as well. Balcus dabbles in inhuman genetic experimentation on loads of innocent people in order to forcibly transform them into Zoanoids, resulting in their grotesque mutation. Balcus gleefully kills Sean and Mizky's friend Max by painfully turning him into an imperfect Zoanoid, resulting in Max horrifically degenerating into an abomination before expiring.
• Fridge Brilliance: Striker survives the movie, accompanied by FBI agent Col. Castle. In the second movie, the government is much more aware of Chronos then before, with Atkins having a whole team. It's possible that Striker was a double agent, leaving the final battle to contact Castle, before going on to sell Chronos out. Castle thus deemed Sean a Spanner in the Works and left him alone, which explains why Atkins didn't know about him.
• Funny Moments: We get one with a Zoanoid on the receiving end of the Guyver's kick.
  "HOLY SHIT!"
• Hilarious in Hindsight: One of Max's subordinates references the Ninja Turtles regarding his claims of mutated humanoids. Mark Hamill, Max's actor, would later voice Kavaxas in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012).
• So Bad, It's Good: The movie is very confused whether it wants to be treated seriously or not. It's got scene-cuts with short musical blasts like a cartoon, cheesy lines merely seconds away from serious exposition, a comic relief character with rap sequences, and a leitmotif stolen from Jaws during a shot where a blade sticks up from someone's chest like a shark's fin.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • While most critics of the film can agree that the effects are top-notch for the budget, one can clearly see the wheels of the mechanism that makes the Zoralord walk when it is blown away by the Guyver.
  • While the suits look nice, the fights they get into aren't.
• Uncertain Audience: The silly, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-esque feel contrasts sharply with the visceral, bloody violence, death and Body Horror of the original manga courtesy of director and effects artist Screaming Mad George (better known for such ventures as Society than kids' films), creating a serious amount of Mood Dissonance that leaves the film with an uncertain target demographic.

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