Review of The Toxic Avenger Part II (1989) by R.c. K — 11 Dec 2008

I watched all three of the Toxic Avenger movies (ok, there are four now, but at the time...) many times, though the sequels had to be rented so my viewings of them were fewer and further between. They're often trashed or denigrated, but I still fondly remember seeing the posters for them at the tiny movie rental alcove in the grocery store we went to in my hometown. How I remember this I'm not sure, considering I was five when this came out, but perhaps it's not as simple as that and the video release was somehow long, long after that.Still, it got to the point that even Troma began to deny the middle two films, as they were "erased" in Citizen Toxie, the fourth film. Still, they're actually out there and even Lloyd has reconsidered (so long as you watch the uncut version with full gore).

The Toxic Avenger (John Altamura/Ron Fazio, a mix of performances due to a mid-filming firing) has cleaned up his hometown of Tromaville, NJ and so the only job he has left is as "concierge" at the Tromaville Home for the Blind, at which his girlfriend Claire (Phoebe Legere) naturally also works. Into it, though, sweeps evil conglomerate (as if you couldn't guess from their name) Apocalypse, Inc. The Chairman (Rick Collins) and his right-hand woman Malfaire (or gyno-American as Lloyd might say--Lisa Gaye) send a bomb to Toxie (through a shipper that must be an acronym for Parcels United Service...) at the home, destroying it utterly. Naturally a hideously deformed creature of superhuman size and strength will not be stopped by something as simple as a bomb, so Toxie must now contend with the troop of fighters the evil Chairman sends from their limo (which includes a masculine and moustachioed transvestite, a black midget, an indian..). When this fails, the Chairman asks his board for suggestions and Malfaire puts forth their latest plot--Toxie's psychiatrist (Erika Schickel) has been bought out and will push Toxie to head to Japan to find his father, "Big Mac" Junko, which will put him in place to be faced with their new weapon--the "anti-Tromaton," which will render him a puddle of "something.".

As I've said, much dirt has been slung at the two middle films in the Toxic Avenger series, and I can certainly understand why. Lloyd Kaufman admits that he and Michael Herz made some concessions to the MPAA when they released them, and unfortunately that sort of thing cripples a movie from a studio like Troma, because part of the point is the gratuitous sex and violence. What always bothered me, and will surprise few people, are the changes made. No longer is he Melvin Furd, but now "Melvin Junko," and various other characters and actors were changed--Sara (originally played by Andree Maranda) is now Claire, Melvin's mother is now played by Jessica Dublin instead of Sarabel Levinson, and even Toxie is now played by Altamura and Fazio, where he was originally played by Mitchell Cohen and voiced by Kenneth Kessler. The tone has changed radically, from a darkly humourous and ultra-violent horror/action/hero movie into a cartoonish comedy with lots of violence. Legere plays Claire as a bouncy, energetic, overly-falsetto airhead accordion player instead of a blind woman who happens to be the butt of many blind jokes by the filmmakers. Fight and chase scenes often have a synthesized version of "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" (!), and Toxie's new voice is kind of nasal. Still, Claire is the only change that really bothered me. It works for the cartoon to have this out-of-control accordion playing girlfriend (who makes me think of the Real Ghostbusters version of Janeane Melnitz), but in the film it's irritating. She's not in this particular film too much though so it's not a huge complaint. On the other hand, it has a hovercraft chase scene to rival Die Another Day.*.

The new tone is interesting and almost makes for a more normal movie, as if Troma accidentally tripped and spilled their workings into a regular movie, and a more character-oriented plot. It ends up kind of bizarre, really, because this is like a singular period in Troma history, with no other films beyond the 2/3 sequels (plural because the same applies to Class of Nuke 'Em High 2 and 3) really hitting this peculiar ground. It's almost like a bridgepoint between the similarly bright and clear later and current films and the earlier, dirtier, grittier ones. Future traditions like Joe Fleishaker are still growing here (he had previously appeared in Troma's War), as are some of the amusingly ridiculous and contrived phrases people spout. Toxie's narration includes numerous instances of clearly deliberately forced alliteration, and the "hideously deformed creature of superhuman size and strength" phrase begins to take its prominence (though only the Toxic Crusaders cartoon rode it as hard as it did). It's kind of sad that Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD was not made for another 2 years, because it would have been the perfect film for a crossover, but such is life, I suppose. Lloyd also managed to begin the eventual tradition of smarter nods than you might expect, with a great response to a Shakespeare quote by the villain uttered by a homeless woman later on--though his commentary reveals even more surprising influences that you would never suspect in a million years.

It's not a bad film (though honestly Lisa Gay is terrible, and not in the Troma sense so much as wooden and awkward and awful--everyone else at least acts correct for their parts, however ridiculous, melodramatic or reduced to caricature they may be) and gets a bad rap simply because it isn't the original film, but it works a lot better with the gore re-inserted and isn't quite so distractingly different with that inclusion--even as a youngun who had never even seen the unrated original, the reduced violence in this confused me quite a bit as a viewer, though I happily found this made it more acceptable to other people. Well, in my mind anyway. I don't think Troma will ever be acceptable in any general circles.

Oh, and watch for the appearance by Go Nagai, apparently a huge fan of Troma, but known to everyone else for creations like Devilman and Mazinger-Z, as well as his own parody of the latter, Panda-Z.

*I've never seen Die Another Day.