Back in 2003, Warner had the bright idea to pretty much take the “Smallville” concept and apply it to the Lone Ranger. Rather than featuring a very young superhero, we were given a very young pulp hero. Except, they changed everything about the original hero. And tried their best to pass off a white cowboy hat and black mask as cool for modern audiences. There’s even a guitar version of the William Tell Overture in the closing credits. Guitars are cool, right? There’s a reason why Lone Ranger is a pulp character. He’s a wonderful superhero, but adjusted to contemporary style is not going to work.
I really can’t imagine a film like “The Land Before Time” being released today. As a kids film it teaches about strength, courage, and the willingness to look for hope in darkness. But as a film in general, director Don Bluth offers a story drenched in sadness, terror, and an almost endless amount of sadness. “The Land Before Time,” like much of Bluth’s work, has held up monumentally well over the year with a beautiful eye for detail, painting a massive world on the threshold of evolving in to something new, while also losing much of its own species to death and turmoil.
Like the original film it stems from, “Come Out and Play” offers the question “Who Can Kil a Child?” If your seven year old cherubic daughter was trying to murder you with a hammer, could you kill her? Laugh all you want, but if it comes down to me, and an evil eight year old intent on hacking me to death with an axe, I’ll gladly bring the child down and any other evil children trying to murder me with a machine gun.
That’s more like it. After the first “The Guyver” managed to draw up some profit and interest, New Line released a sequel to “The Guyver” directly to VHS. It wasn’t until 1995 where I was finally able to see it on the Science Fiction Channel in American cable television. I wasn’t even aware there was a sequel at the time. For folks who hated the camp and comedy of the first film, prepare for a jolt of pure action packed entertainment.
It’s hard to believe that such an amazing anime series like “Guyver” would be so poorly received here in the states. Back in 1991, my dad rented “Guyver” for us and I absolutely adored it because I thought the Guyver looked amazing. I loved the look, the concept, the costume, and his elbow blades. Not to mention the movie starred Mark Hamill and that bald guy I always see in horror movies who I always thought was cool.