O Vingador Tóxico 3

I'm probably the only person that likes this installment. Even Kaufman himself doesnt care for it but I like this one. I can't really compare it to part II becuase c'mon..it's pretty much the same movie just a 2nd half. Toxie III is the 2nd half of an overlong movie that was split down the middle. It opens with an awesome scene a video store with Troma posters covering the place , some bonehead criminals pop in to cause trouble attacking the role Troma plays on consumer favorites like anything released by Warner Bros and MGM. It's also an attack on how mainstream chain video stores like Movie Gallery and Blockbuster are driving independent mom n pop video stores out which always have an awesome variety of movies..especially low budget horror on their shelves. Toxie bust in as a symbol of Troma's stance on cleaning up these corporations with some grissly death scenes..ahh how funny jump roping with intestines is. After this Toxie isnt having as much fun as he used to , he's resorted to stopping old ladies from cheating at cards..to getting kids to eat their lima beans. That annoying girlfriend Claire can get her eyes corrected with an operation..all Toxie needs is money. He signs a deal with Apoclypse Inc the corporation he ran out in Part II and gets her the operation.. And so Toxie becomes the most horrible thing of all..a yuppie. Clearly taking a stab at the Reagan era spoiled brats Toxie III has the least action in the series..in fact the entire middle is pretty lifeless until the chairman (again Rick Collins) reveals himself to be none other than the Devil himself and challenges Toxie to the Levels Of Doom. In the end..you'll just have to see it. Definitly not the best in the series..but hey..it's got it's moments see it anyway...but probably only really worth it in the Unrated Directors Cut since the R version omits most of the gore in the first half.

Continuing my descent into Troma's Toxic Avenger saga, I've arrived at the third film: THE LAST TEMPTATION OF TOXIE. In reality this movie is less a "Part III" and more a "Part II, Part II" because, as I've learned, writer/director Lloyd Kaufman originally intended for the second and third parts (as we know them) to be one big sequel instead of two small ones. He ended production with too much material and made the decision to split it into two movies. TOXIC AVENGER II makes slightly more sense now in retrospect. In that movie, the evil Apocalypse Inc. establishes itself as the big bad corporate villain with its eyes set on ruining Tromaville and the environment before disappearing while the Toxic Avenger toyed around in Tokyo for the bulk of the run time. In TOXIC AVENGER III, we return to that plot thread except now the timeline is all screwy. Let me see if I've got this straight…in PART II, Apocalypse Inc. goes full evil right from the start with an attack on the Toxic Avenger and all his blind friends. Before Toxie can retaliate, Apocalypse Inc. creates a diversion with rumors of Toxie's father living in Tokyo. After all that Japan business is concluded, Toxie returns home in time to stop a bomber/assassin that Apocalypse Inc. hired to blow up…something. At the start of PART III, we jump into Toxie cleaning up the damage Apocalypse has done to the town starting with a local video rental store that's being shaken down by Apocalypse goons.

Then we flashback (for some reason) to a week prior when the whole plot of PART III kicks off: Toxie feels guilty that he's not contributing financially to the toxic household (he and blind girlfriend Claire are living off her government assistance). Claire receives a letter in the mail promoting an experimental surgery that can restore her eyesight and Toxie get s a job at Apocalypse Inc. to foot the cost of the procedure. Let me repeat that: he gets a job with Apocalypse Inc. The evil conglomerate that murdered all his blind friends in the opening of PART II and tried to murder a bunch more people with a bomb on a motorcycle. He completely disregards their evil nature and gets a job with them as their spokesperson, and then he wonders why everyone in town has turned on him. The third film's subtitle, THE LAST TEMPTATION OF TOXIE, refers to Toxie's employment with Apocalypse and his eventual redemption when he realizes what everyone else already knew: Apocalypse is evil and he's a sell-out. The plot, while slightly more complex than that of PART II, is still incredibly simplistic and stupid. We know from the very beginning what's going to happen: it's all going to culminate in a final battle of the Toxic Avenger versus Satan. If the title wasn't obvious enough, the poster art featuring the Toxic Avenger duking it out with the Dark One should be a solid giveaway. Writing is not Troma's strength. Trust me, I get that at this point.

My point is that Troma works best when it goes full force into the crazier material: brutal graphic violence against criminals and scantily clad women. Seeing as how this and PART II were originally meant to be one complete film, it really feels like it wasn't split evenly in terms of content. PART II is almost entirely insane, creative (and often stupid) action sequences linked together with the most meager of story threads, and PART III is mostly poorly written story bookended with an action scene at the beginning (in the video rental store) and the final battle with the devil (which accounts for almost a third of the movie by itself). The entire middle section of the film relies on the subpar plot of Toxie working for Apocalypse and becoming a yuppie. This means that entire segment is dependent on Troma's brand of…ugh…"comedy." This fails because Troma's (or at least writers Kaufman and Gay Partington Terry) brand of humor is lame jokes you'd expect from an out-of-touch uncle. For example, one such "rip-roarer" comes with one of Toxie's earliest attempts at employment as an agent of the Internal Revenue Service. Toxie, with a suit and briefcase, approaches a home and he's run off when the family starts throwing anything they can find at the taxman (mostly clothes hangers and Easter baskets for some reason). Isn't it hilarious! People hate taxes! What about the part when Toxie awkwardly uses "Wall Street" lingo on the phone! Isn't that just so wacky! I didn't think so either.

If you can suffer through almost an hour of that, you arrive at the final battle against Satan who, no surprise, was head of Apocalypse the whole time. There's a glimmer of hope as he reveals his true form through some good ol' Troma effects. Once he arrives, Satan decides he wants to torment Toxie in the style of a video game as weakly foreshadowed in an early scene where Toxie is playing some arcade game with a generic title like "Five Levels of Doom." As cool as that sounds, any enthusiasm I managed to muster was quelled when I realized it wouldn't be anywhere near as cool as promised. Regardless, that final battle and opening video store fight are enough to find something worthy of recommendation here. This is definitely the worst Toxic Avenger film I've seen. There's no denying that. It has its moments: the Devil transformation, some of the gore effects, and surprisingly Phoebe Legere. She didn't contribute much to PART II but I enjoyed her a lot more this time around. It's probably because they actually gave her something relevant to do. She even gets a crack at an inspiring speech when she's not bumbling around wildly. But the bottom line is that THE LAST TEMPTATION OF TOXIE is a major fumble and fails to meet even Troma's already lower standards.

The third TOXIC AVENGER film (aka LAST TEMPTATION OF TOXIE, 1989) by Herz/Kaufman pair is not too interesting anymore because it seems to rely more and more on the inept "humor" that would be found in the many other Troma films, too, but which was much more intelligent and critical in the frist TOXIC. Still the third part includes even Satan and an internal moral fight of the protagonist mutant which are welcome additions to the dramatic structure of the monster story! There are some nice and even clever camera tricks and angles (like the school bus terror) and naturally lots of ridiculous sexual situations and (some) ultra gore, but when compared to the originality and great dialogue of the first movie and the ultra wild and still pretty fresh feel of the second part, this third movie seems more and more just a money taker and not so great a (trash) movie anymore. Usually if a sequel has many segments or scenes from a previous film (usually from part one), that tells something about the obvious lack of new ideas and in addition to this sequel in question, that can also be found among others in an awful Sonny Chiba sequel to his Japanese karate flick THE STREET FIGHTER (1974), THE RETURN OF THE STREET FIGHTER (1975). These films don't have anything else in common for sure but both sequels tell the same thing.

For low budget shlock movies, director Lloyd Kaufman was able to produce film that not only successfully hit that mark but also gained a following. While The Toxic Avenger (1984) was not his first venture, it was the one movie that put him on the map for viewers. The Toxic Avenger (1984) was astonishingly goofy and unrealistic but the story was a basic good over evil story with some charm in its effects. But like all franchises, it comes with what most would expect from its sequels. The Toxic Avenger Part II (1989) was disjointed in its direction and seriously lagged in its pacing. The only thing it still had going for it was its over the top violence. However similar to other first sequels, the second sequel was shot simultaneously to wrap up the whole trilogy.

With that said, the story picks up very much where the last film left off. Since the evil corporation Apocalypse Inc. Was not able to keep Toxie (John Altamura) in Japan like they had hoped, the chairman (Rick Collins) takes it upon his team to have the city of Tromaville turn on their once beloved hero. Other than his girlfriend Claire (Phoebe Legere), Toxie has to find a way to win back the hearts of the now upset locals. Directed again by Kaufman and Michael Herz and written by Kaufman and Gay Partington Terry, this second entry in continuing the super powered radioactive creature is still less than desirable. Much of this sequel feels like the creatives behind the feature wasn't sure what to do with Toxie anymore other than pad things out at excessive lengths.

The title is obviously a play on The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) but that's more or less the entire story. Toxie doesn't feel great after removing all the evil from his town as he no longer feels he has purpose. The acting was not great in the original but again it all added up to something in the end. Part II was a lot of the original with aspects that felt like were exaggerated further. This film only feels very much the same of Part II. All the characters except Toxie himself make some of the most ridiculous facial expressions and say really weird lines. All the actors that were in Part II are mostly here for this finishing entry as well. Rick Collins is probably the hammiest of them all.

Unfortunately, a lot of the over acting is slow in its delivery. This only makes each scene more and more boring to watch. The pacing is already bad but this makes it worse. When the finale of the film starts at basically the last third of the run time, it might not be the greatest of signs. There are action sequences throughout the film but again they feel very sluggish. The effects on the other hand are a decent aspect to the film. This was always an area of the franchise viewers tended to like. While by today's standards they're still probably seen as low quality or uninspired, compared to the entire movie, it is a highlight. There's a scene that involves a bus and even a character melting. These particular parts look the best.

The camerawork itself is hit and miss. James A. Lebovitz who worked on the previous two films in the franchise had okay shots in certain places and others not so much. There are times where his camera uses the wide angle lens or gets right under an actor's nose. Pretty sure most viewers don't need to see what's up their nose. Lastly what was probably the most surprising is that this feature received a score album. Why this one, who knows. Unlike the first which had no composer, the second which had Barry Guard, this entry had Christopher De Marco. Although the album barely passes thirty minutes, De Marco is able to create a theme for Toxie and uses it throughout his tracks which is respectable. Would've been nice if the other entries received this kind of treatment too.

This entry is about as entertaining as the Part II but for different reasons. The acting here is ratcheted up even further, the pacing is still slower than ever and the camerawork is annoying at times. The effects are still credible and music for once has something going for it. That doesn't make it a good sequel though.

The previous two Toxic Avenger films managed a total 5 points out of a potential 20 from me so it goes without saying that Troma hardly have a fan here.

The companies most famous character returns for a third and perhaps worst outing. Here Toxie sells his soul to the devil in order to raise the money for his girlfriends eye surgery, and that's basically it.

Unlike part 2 there aren't even any purile gags to be found here and the whole thing is cringe inducing. If a 5yr old were given money to have a movie filmed based on their writing I'm pretty sure this is what it'd look like.

Toxic vomit, men in tutus, another awkward Toxie sex scene and random dog people are to be found and little else. Childish, dumb and I can't believe there is another one and that I'm going to watch it.

The Good:

Consistent cast

The Bad:

Simply not funny

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Intestines make great skipping ropes

Tattoo removal in the 80's was savage!

Redneck Zombies was not a Disney film