Toxic Avenger III: La dernière tentation de Toxie

By the way this started I thought it was gonna be better than 2...maybe not better than 1 but better than 2. From the opening scene, however, it goes way downhill. Very disappointing since some of TOxie's greatest, goriest, and funniest kills are shown in the opening scene. Theat scene is seriously the ONLY gore scene in the film, except a little at the end. The rest is turned into some type of "family" comedy. Not for the family, but a regular comedy. Some of the jokes are funny, when Toxie is talking like a tennis player...cracks me up. But most of the jokes fall flat. It is, however, still fun to see Toxie kill the bad guys. We just want it with more gore. This film barely even has any nudity! Troma without nudity is like Easter without eggs! Come on Troma is known for their gore and nudity. Basically needed in most Troma films with some exceptions...like Kabukiman. However the other Toxic Avengers had it and it is missing. There is a n homage to the original in this one though, about his Mother-In-Law. Classic. Overall, not horrible but not great. Seen a lot of better Toxic films. Worth a watch if you are a Troma fan.

I consider myself to be a fan of Troma films ever since catching some on late night UK TV, but this is a lesser effort. It uses leftover footage from the second movie, as well as highlights from the first film. I am a fan of the first film and the second one is ok-ish. I don't know if I just wasn't in the mood for it or didn't have the right amount of stimulants, but this is for the most part just plain bad.

It lacks the gore of the first two films. This is understandable as the first two films had difficulty securing an R rating for video and theatres. Not to mention the kid friendly Toxic Crusaders TV series would have been in the pipeline. Like a lot of Troma films it has goofy humour which is more irritating than amusing in this one. You can excuse the low budget and I actually think some of the set design and costumes look really good. However, when the actors are told to stand around and point and laugh for two minutes, it's just bad film making and not so bad it's good either. There's also the nearly two hour runtime to consider.

I can appreciate the green devil and the original take on Dante's Inferno; which has been done better since in The Devil In Miss Jones sequels and Deconstructing Harry. Other than that it's hugely disappointing. Troma did go onto redeem themselves with an absolute cracker in the form of Tromeo & Juliet. These films no doubt have their fans, but it would have made for a wasted Blockbuster rental back in the days to all, but the most ardent fans.

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.

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 best thing about Toxic Avenger Part III is the poster art. The film starts off pretty good with a fight at Tromaville Video. This is probably the highlight of the movie. Make sure you watch the Unrated version as the R Rated version removes almost all of the gore.

Once again Toxie has rid Tromaville of all evil, or so he thinks. What is an out of work superhero to do? Toxie signs a contract with Apocalypse Inc. To make enough money to buy his girlfriend an operation that will restore her eye sight. Corporate Toxie becomes blind to what is going on right under his nose in Tromaville. He's letting the bad guys takeover his town. His girlfriend convinces him to finally open his eyes, and he realizes that he's sold his soul to the Devil. To break the contract Toxie must play the Seven Levels of Doom and win or the Devil himself will rule over Tromaville and Toxie's friends.

This entry is the most disappointing of the series, and much like Part II, I really enjoyed this film when I was younger. Toxic Avenger Part III hasn't held up very well, and will probably have the greatest appeal to those who are viewing it for the first time.