Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

brando647 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.

trashgang 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

Bryan Kluger In 1984, Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz created Troma's brand of a superhero, which was the 'Toxic Avenger'. It brought the small indie film studio into the limelight, which created an instant cult following, and made enough money to finance several further films. This superhero was a nerdy guy janitor who was bullied and picked on, but then fell into a vat of toxic waste and emerged a horribly disfigured superhero who would fight the bad guys in town.The year 1989 came around and Kaufman and Herz decided to make sequel and a quick buck as well, and thus 'The Toxic Avenger: Part II' was born. There are a lot of fun moments here with this sequel, but Kaufman and Herz decided the more over- the-top this is, the better the film will be. That's not always the case, as is here with Part II. Instead of telling a somewhat cohesive story from start to finish and furthering along the Toxie character in their own Troma way, Kaufman and Herz decided to drag out gross out and gooey scenes too long and put together a bunch of schlocky-silly skits together with blood and guts, rather than keep the story flowing.Don't get me wrong, there are some genuine good moments here, but they wear out there welcome rather quickly, even when the crew heads to Japan for a change of scenery. After the events of the first film, Toxie lives with his girlfriend and works at the center for the blind. The town he lives in is free of the bad guys, where everyone lives more or less a hippy lifestyle. Low and behold though, the evil people at Apocalypse Inc., the evil corporation whose sole purpose is to pollute the Earth has a new sinister plan.However, they know that The Toxic Avenger will stand in their way of their cruel schemes, thus they try to kill Toxie. Meanwhile, Toxie is dealing with his own personal demons in addition to brutally killing the bad guys. He has sever depression and wants to know who his real father is, which sets him out on a journey via windsurfing to Japan to locate his father. It seems like Troma would have quite the character study here, but let's get serious for a minute. This is Troma, and Troma is mostly just interested in more nudity, gore, and violence.One of the unfortunate things here is that Kaufman and Herz throw all the playing cards on the table in the first fifteen minutes of the movie in one long action scene of destruction, and the film never recovers. They literally blew their wad too early. There are a few later scenes that pack this kind of action, but it is very short lived with long gaps of slow pacing problems. In the end, I still love that this sequel is part of the whole Toxie franchise, but it's very inconsistent and riddled with trying to go the extra mile than telling a cohesive story.

lastliberal You are either going to find the Toxic Avenger films funny, or incredibly stupid. Well, maybe they are so incredibly stupid that they are funny. They certainly grow on you the more you watch them.In this second adventure, all the great stuff happens in Japan. The fish-nose bit is hilarious.But, before Toxie gets to Japan, he fights off the evil minions that are attempting to take over Tromaville. Those who are averse to blood and guts may find his methods a little hard to take.In japan, he finds his father, Big Mac (Rikiya Yasuoka) with the help of a girl (Mayako Katsuragi) he saved from more evildoers. His father is evil also and he meets an inglorious end at the hands of a fish market owner. Toxie dispatches all his father's henchmen, and one henchwoman (Maya Shiraki), who manages to provide some real comic relief. Lots of gore in Tromaville, and plenty of nudity in Japan.Returning home, he sets out to clean up the mess that happened while he was gone. And, he unites with his real father.The production values were top notch in this film. The costumes in Japan were really colorful and I can see why it was such a hit there.