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Guyver: Dark Hero
Guyver: Dark Hero 1994
After watching the first Guyver movie and seeing how campy it was, I was very curious to see how the follow up would be considering that it is one of the very rare cases where it goes from PG-13 to R instead of vice-versa and completely loses the comedy angle. Unfortunately, when you take out the comedy angle of the Guyver, what’s left is the same amount of poor acting but without nearly as much camp to make it as enjoyable as it was. There is still some laughs to be had at the cheesiness of it all, but it ends up being a lot more boring than the first one and the small handful of really interesting practical special effects have been replaced with really crappy looking first generation digital effects. It aims at being a more serious story, and yet it also tosses in a large number of cliched and soap opera-ish plotlines that don’t make it any more interesting. Which is disappointing, because there is the seed of a good story that could be told within all of this greater mythology, it’s just being presented in one of the poorest ways possible.
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Captain Battle: Legacy War
Captain Battle: Legacy War 2013
Continuing on in my quest to watch all of the 2013 releases I can get my hands on, and I’m pretty sure I’ve come to what I would easily call the worst superhero film of 2013, and I’m not talking about Iron Man or Man of Steel like some people might claim. No, I’m talking about an actually bad movie. This movie looks worse than most fan films I’ve covered on this site. The special effects look like they were done on a trial version of After Effects, with page wipes straight out of Windows Movie Maker, and make up that looks like it was done with magic markers. The movie attempts a story that’s much too big for the special effects or acting abilities of those involved. And on top of that, while it is based on an actual comic book, the timing of it is a cheap rip-off of Captain America, complete with a Red Skull analogue with the aforementioned red magic marker special effects makeup. It has plenty of moments of enjoyably bad moviemaking, and a handful of T&A, but for the most part it was simply a boring mess of a movie.
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Citizen Toxie
Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV 2000
This is the most recent Toxic Avenger movie to come from Troma films, at least until the slowly developing sequel Toxic Twins finally gets made. Apparently the writer/director suffers from procrasti-pation, a cross between procrastination and constipation, at least according to the teaser. But anyway, this movie feels like it already exists in practically a different universe. There’s no direct follow up from Toxie part 2 or 3, in fact his girlfriend is back to being blind. There are plenty of other additions to the movie that make it seem like they’ve been there all along, like Toxie’s sidekick Lardass or his ability to change into a hot bikini babe. There’s also a lot more nudity in this movie, there are more breasts in part 4 than there were in parts 1 through 3 combined, though there’s always a layer of crass humor to undercut any possible sexiness. This movie also has plenty of “star” power, ranging from Stan Lee who voices the opening and ending narration, famous porn star Ron Jeremy, Troma property Kabukiman, and not-exactly-stars-but-I-recognized-them stand up comedians the Skylar Brothers. And also more than any of the previous movies, this film is filled with humor that is based on being offensive. It is still a cheesy B-movie, and as far as my enjoyment level goes, it is much better than parts 2 & 3, though I’m not sure it captured the original intent or charm of the first movie.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 