If you have already seen the legendary "Guyver" manga (Japanese animation) series and enjoyed them, you are bound to love the second outing in the live action version of the cartoon. The suits and make-up are quite brilliant, but the icing on the cake is the Guyver itself - its exactly the way I pictured it to be when I saw the cartoons. The movie isn't for everyone, the storyline may seem weak on the outside, but if you pay close attention to it, it is quite well thought out. The acting is corny, but come on, is there anyone who would see a movie that even has "spectacular martial arts action" in the tagline for its acting? If you are considering seeing this, I believe it would be a better idea to hire the original 1-12 manga series and the first live-action movie, The Guyver (aka Mutronics).

Here we go, I just reviewed the first movie not to long ago and here I am on the sequel. What's with the "Dark Hero" kick? I mean Wolverine kills bad people and they don't call him a dark hero. This whole dark thing doesn't sound right to me. The Japanese Guyver never worried about killing bad people or is he turning into a monster. That's the whole American thing about killing is wrong, even to save your own butt and that's just crazy talk. But enough about that, let's see what else. Ah, the script follows close to the script of the anime, like the first movie. The broken Guyver unit situation is cool. It's basically a good movie, besides the whole "dark hero" thing. 9 STARS!

I remember seeing the first of these movies back when I was in my late teens, getting it on VHS and it was titled "Mutronics", oddly enough. I do have fond memories of that movie, so I decided to get this "Guyver: Dark Hero" and see what it was all about as I never saw it when it was initially released.

Hand on heart, then I only remember the first movie in fragments as it has been many, many years since last time I saw it. So whether or not "Guyver: Dark Hero" picks up and stays true to the first movie (much less the comic book),well I wouldn't be able to say that actually.

"Guyver: Dark Hero" was fun to watch, just bear in mind that it was made back in 1994, so the effects here are somewhat, well let's just say out of date, in lack of better. But still, the movie was pulled off nicely, and I am sure that for 1994, then the effects were actually up to code and off the charts back then. I enjoyed seeing the details on the Guyver armor and the details on the Zionoids. Despite it being rubber and all, then they actually put a lot of work and effort into it and it looked really, really nice - even today.

The story in "Guyver: Dark Hero" was pretty straight forward and easy to follow, even if you haven't seen the first movie or like me can't fully remember it. There wasn't really any big twists or turn of events, so you know what you are in for here, be it predictable and all.

Actually they had some fairly impressive people on the cast list, I mean, you have David Hayter (playing Sean Baker/Guyver) and Christopher Michael (playing Atkins).

I must say that I found the fighting scenes to actually be nice, but also funny to behold at the same time, because there just was something comical about the Zoinoids when they were fighting.

If you enjoy Sci-Fi of the older type, then "Guyver: Dark Hero" is well worth watching, and I am pretty sure that the kids will enjoy the movie as well because of the story and because of the Zoinoids. Odd, though, I seem to recall the first movie being somewhat more dark, brooding and brutal than this one.