The Toxic Avenger Part II (1989)

Must See Movie...

i must have seen a different film!!

Absolutely Fantastic

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

THE TOXIC AVENGER PART II is Troma's energetic follow-up to the first movie, which itself was something of a cult hit. I found this more enjoyable in some cases, because it does away with the stupidity of plotting and instead focuses on dishing up B-movie ingredient after B-movie ingredient. There are cheesy one-liners, lots of bad, over the top acting, and endless action sequences as Toxie beats up one goofy henchman after another. The gore is plentiful, cheap, and splashes about all over the place, and the special effects are endearingly bad. The shift of milieu to Japan makes for some interesting situations. You know, I think this might just be the best of the four-part TOXIC AVENGER series.

Time to continue my self-introduction to the world of Troma Entertainment. Reacting to vague memories from childhood of the "Toxic Crusaders" cartoon, I've taken the liberty of ordering the Toxic Avenger film series so I can see where the character originated. Plus, until now, I haven't dove into the world of Troma before. I started with THE TOXIC AVENGER and found it simplistic, crude, often stupid, but also fun and with a great indie filmmaker spirit shining through. From there, I've moved on to the second adventure of the "first superhero from New Jersey" where he travels to Japan in search of his estranged father. I don't know what happened in the five years between the release of the first film and the second but somehow the filmmakers have gotten worse at, well, movie making. What's strange about THE TOXIC AVENGER PART II is how that actually made the movie more fun than the original. The first film maintained, at least, a linear progressive storyline: local loser Melvin is tormented by the bullies of Tromaville, a prank goes awry and he becomes doused in toxic waste, and he becomes a superhero, cleaning up the local evils while defending his good name against those who believe him to be a monster. In PART II, Lloyd Kaufman and fellow screenwriter Gay Partington Terry decided people were more interested in the gory, fantastical violence than the "plot" and focused their sequel on just that. Maybe they were right. They definitely pushed the limits.Start to finish, TOXIC AVENGER PART II is just a series of excuses to engage in fight scenes and give the Toxic Avenger chances to get creative in how he murders villains. The first twenty minutes or so of the movie are one giant action sequence when the movie's villains, Apocalypse Inc., unleash a small army of thugs on the Tromaville Home for the Blind in hopes of running off/killing its inhabitants and turning it into yet another toxic waste disposal site. Of course, the Toxic Avenger works there with his girlfriend Claire (Phoebe Legere) and the deaths of his blind friends sends him into a rage. It's an excessive opening sequence where he slaughters all manner bizarre henchmen including a martial artist, a cross-dresser (of course, because it's Troma), a little person (of course, because it's Troma), some sort of man/dog mutant, gangsters, a man in Native American garb, etc. Each one getting their own bloody mutilation. At more than 20 minutes, it's like sitting through a low-budget special effects company's sizzle reel. Remember, this is before the movie even really officially begins. Once we finally into what passes for an inciting incident, Apocalypse Inc. devises a plan to lure the Toxic Avenger away from Tromaville long enough to get their stranglehold on the population and ruin the environment (or something like that). They use the Toxic Avenger's psychiatrist to convince him he needs to travel to Japan and find his father, and the movie finally starts trudging forward.Most of the movie's runtime is devoted to the Toxic Avenger maiming his way through Tokyo. With a higher budget and a positive response to the original film in Japan, Kaufman saw the chance for some production value. He throws in any local culture he can with the Toxic Avenger and his new friend Masami (Mayako Katsuragi) acting as our tour guides. But again, it all serves one purpose: get us to the next fight sequence. The new locale lets the filmmakers have some fun with our hero taking on ninjas, kabuki men, another cross-dresser (this one in school girl garb because Japan?), and some bizarre fish-man hybrid. I don't know, man, it's just weird. Whereas the first movie was still pretty grounded in the real world, PART II dives into goofy cartoon territory. In addition to those dog and fish mutants, Kaufman and crew make the deaths less brutal with the utter stupidity in the fight sequences. A little person compressed into a basketball, decapitated men dancing through the frame, the Toxic Avenger using starfish and swordfish as weapons in a street fight; the movie is loaded to the brim with this stuff. It's a far cry from the more hard-hitting brutality of the first movie where he'd drop gym weights on a drug dealer's head or rip a robber's arm off and beat him with it. The reason I enjoy PART II over the (arguably superior) first is because of this excess though. It knows what it is.THE TOXIC AVENGER PART II is not a good movie. It's not even really a movie. It's somehow less of a movie than the first was, but it seems to understand that "plot" and "progression" aren't its strong points so it overcompensates with the craziness. It distracted me from the fact that absolutely nothing of interest happens in this movie by throwing a series of over-the-top fight scenes at me until the end credits. It helps you accept that the Toxic Avenger is done with a crappy rubber mask this time and that all of the dialogue is dubbed (badly). This movie is overwhelmingly dumb and it could've ended about twenty minutes sooner but, as far as my experiences with Troma are concerned, it's more entertaining.

Just seen the full uncut version of Toxic Avenger part 2 and as I wrote in my review of part 1, this is typical Troma and again this part goes even further in stupidity. What I did like was the opening part in which we do have a lot of gory moments. Thought this flick would be full of it but once the fighting starts in the opening the silly moments come in too.And in silly I really mean parts were people can turn off their TV. Like when all kind of persons attack Melvin they even start to dance. It's Troma and it shows from there on and it even goes further once Melvin goes search for his dad in Tokyo. You will have it all, the public baths, the ninja, the sumo wrestling guys and of course a lot of nudity. I was surprised that a lot of Japanese girls go the full monty without the body being blurred in editing. Pubic hair and private parts can't be shown due their religion.Over the top with the stupidity that's the part that I don't like but hey, there are so many out there who do like Toxie.Gore 1,5/5 Nudity 1,5/5 Effects 2/5 Story 1/5 Comedy 0,5/5

The Toxic Avenger Part II (1989) * 1/2 (out of 4) Incredibly disappointing sequel finds Tromaville at peace with crime now gone but this doesn't last long when a group of thugs blow up a house full of blind people. The Toxic Avenger takes care of these guys but he also must go to Japan to try and locate his long-lost father. THE TOXIC AVENGER PART II is an incredibly bad movie from start to finish but if you do decide to sit through it then it's best you view the uncut version, which will at least give you all sorts of gore. If you go with the "cut" version of this then you might as well take a complete star away from my rating. In its uncut form we're treated to some pretty wild gore scenes that manage to be just as disgusting as the ones in the first flick. Most of the action takes place after the home for the blind has been blown up and various thugs take their shots at the Toxic Avenger. He rips them apart in countless ways, turns a midget into a basketball and one poor guy gets smashed to where his guts are falling out all over the place. All that gore is good but sadly there's a lot of bad here. For starters, this thing clocks in at 103-minutes which is at least twenty-minutes too long and in all honesty I'd argue it's about forty-minutes too long. THe film's story is a pretty weak one even by Troma standards and they simply don't do anything with it. The stuff at Tromaville is just boring and the stuff in Japan dealing with the father simply goes no where. There's also a real lack of any comedy, which is something that made the original film work so well. Performances are pretty much what you'd expect from a movie like this. Sadly, everything that made the original so good is missing here so if you must you can fast forward to all the gore scenes and just leave everything else alone.