The Toxic Avenger Part II

Troma really are the pits, I was debating whether Troma or Fullmoon made the worst movies but I think I can confidently say that Troma takes the title.

With an immense catalogue of movies they're known for The Toxic Avenger and Class of Nukem High franchises above all else and I'm shocked to say I haven't seen them all.

Made 5yrs after the original Toxie gets not one but two films in the same year and this second outing is a marginal improvement on the embarassing (Yet somehow cult) original.

Toxie ventures off to Japan to find his real father while the evil Apocalypse Inc take over the town in his absence. So yeah, there is the "Plot".

Full of madcap slapstick humour I'd say about 90% of jokes not only miss the mark but miss trip backflip land on their head and urinate themselves. I like that type of humour, but it's so purile and you can tell that it was written by Kaufman! Yes if you've read any other reviews he's been mentioned in you'll understand that I think he has the talent of a Kardashian.

Interesting nugget of information, the film briefly features Michael Jai White in his very first on screen role! I'd imagine he's not proud of that but I'm sure it got better after that...............oh wait, his second role was The Toxic Avenger Part III? Poor sod!

The Good:

A couple of laughs

The Bad:

Simply not funny

Alike every Troma film it just all looks so terrible

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Dancing in the street is a principal activity

Nobody wants to see their father in a diaper

I watched part 1 a few days ago and totally blown away, so much that I craved a second helping. Toxic Avenger goes to Tokyo, the land of weirdness, has to be cool, right?

At the start something immediately stuck out. They slapped a Halloween mask on the Toxic Avenger. It seriously looks as if the make bought a mask at Target. Part one got Toxie's look perfect. How could they screw up this bad? And not just the face, his entire outfit looks slapped together.

The beginning opens up with some gory awesomeness. It's looking to be a good movie. Everything is looking good until Toxie goes to Tokyo. At that point the movie really takes a plunge. There's a few over-the-top scenes were great to watch. Everything in between those scenes seems slapped together on the spot. Maybe the film crew felt out of place in Japan.

It just didn't have the confidence of the first one. Actually, scratch that, part one is the only true Toxic Avenger movie. Part two should have paid for its dishonor in the true Japanese fashion by disemboweling itself for shaming a classic.

This is not NEARLY as good as the first (if the first can be considered good). But where else can you see midget basketball, headless break dancing, and kabuki kung-fu? It's only in The Toxic Avenger Part II. I crack up every time I see the old lady get machine gunned out of her wheelchair. And it has a great theme song and the dubbing is wonderful. Actually it's one of the stupidest movies I've ever seen. It has some of the most ridiculous stuff ever thought up. Why is Toxie's blind girlfriend's name changed? Her name is Sara in the original, now all of a sudden she's Claire. What's the point? Has it been so long since the creators have watched the original that they just forgot her name? And the mysterious dark rider??!! I'm not even going to get into it. Quite a bit of this movie is pointless. Wait...just forget everything I have said. You weren't meant to think and watch this movie at the same time. Enjoy it for what it is: a Troma masterpiece.

Words I would use to describe this movie:

Zany. Madcap. Gory. Cartoonish. Babe-a-licious. Ultra-low-budget. Corny.

I don't recall the first one being so ridiculous. There's kind of a plot, but not really. There's kind of an antagonist, but not really. The stakes are high, sort of. To be honest, I can't really think of a reason to recommend this movie to you. You'll likely be disappointed if you enjoyed the first one. It pains me to say that, because I have a fondness for all things Troma. One gets the sense from watching this movie that it's a movie in search of an idea; perhaps that explains why there are 5 writers credited under "additional material written by." It definitely seems like the kind of script where people were throwing riffs in around an idea instead of there being one or two people with a clear vision of the story.

Tons of beautiful Japanese girls in the movie (including Mayako Katsuragi), plus the uber-sexy, innocently naughty Phoebe Legere.

You may find it charming, as I did. There isn't anything memorable here. There are some funny kills.

Toxic Avenger part II receives a lot of flak from reviewers, and I am not surprised: Troma, in their foolishness, decided to sell the R-rated version on DVD with cover boasting an unrated cut. Ignorant consumers naturally thought this WAS the unrated cut, which is but a pile of forgettable dross with all the gleeful violence and nudity cut out by the MPAA. (and most inexplainably of all, the fate of the Japanese thug girl is completely removed, which doesn't contain any hardcore violence in the first place!) Unfortunately (or fortunately, rather) I have only heard about the notorious censored version, as I myself got the Tox Box which contained the TRUE unrated cut, and trust me when I say that it is almost on par with the first movie. The first film was a huge hit in Japan, and Troma received additional sponsorship from that very country, which is why they went there to make their film. Naturally, the plot to get Toxie to Japan is absolutely ridiculous, but that's Troma for you.

Personally, I rate this film actually higher than the first, mostly because of the much higher production values which do indeed show: gone are the pumpkin-head children and cheap gore effects, as this time we see some genuine splatter, such as a man being squeezed to death in a wheelchair, literally causing him to spill his guts...or a man being chopped up by a very distracted fish marketer!