The man monster who put Troma on the map is back again. Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz bring us the continuing adventures of New Jersey's first superhero, that hideously deformed creature of superhuman size and strength, former nerd turned suburban savior, the Toxic Avenger! Yes, Toxie has returned, this time in an overseas odyssey to find his long lost father. Toxie explores the wonder and horrible horrible commercialism of The Land Of The Rising Sun, and battles evil corporate assassins in his fight to save the planet and bang his hot blind girlfriend... and it's nowhere near as amusing as the first one. Damn sequel-itis, even the psychos at Troma get stricken with this fatal disease, which is responsible for 30% of the horrible movies that come out every year. Won't you help stop sequel-itis? For only the cost of buying a few hookers for the Seattle Supersonics, a few thousand dollars a day, you can help the struggle against bad sequels and save countless needy movie watchers from life threatening depression and disappointment. Simply send your money to Sally Struthers, so she can buy more and more food and get all fat and maybe die... sure, that may not stop bad movies, but at least everyone can lay in bed at night, safe in the knowledge that Sally Struthers will no longer be around to hurt anyone. So, as I was saying about THE TOXIC AVENGER II...

After his victory in the first film, we join Toxie as a hero with nothing to be heroic about. All the crime in Tromaville's been defeated and there's no bad guys left for the melted down mutant to mutilate and beat with their own severed limbs. So, with no villainy left in Tromaville, the people are allowed to dance pointlessly in the street and make orange juice, delicious New Jersey orange juice. Ah, New Jersey, where the 'C' in Vitamin C stands for Crap... Anyway, amidst all this bodily gyration and citric creation, Toxie's unemployed and most fill his days as the athletics organizer at the blind people's refuge where his blind blond bombshell Claire works. Ah Troma, where the term, "the blind leading the blind" is taken literally because their viewers can't comprehend sarcasm. Despite his best efforts to make blind croquet a professional sport, Toxie's still not content with his life... he's beloved by all and gets to fuck a gorgeous blind babe who he'll never have to worry about looking good for, and he's not content!? Some guys don't know the sweet life when it's right under their irradiated, toxic waste dripping noses. Oh well, at least he won't have to put up with all this monotony and unbelievable sex for long...

Evil soon rears it's ugly head into the Avenger's nuclear family life (get it, "nuclear" family?! Oh come on, at least gimme a pity chuckle), in the form of the corrupt corporate killers at the ominous sounding Apocalypse Incorporated! In an effort to eliminate Toxie before he can become an obstacle, the suits at AI (and no, they don't employ Jude Law or the Haley Joel what's-his-face wiener) have a special UPS delivery sent to the home for the blind: a bomb delivered by an M-16 wielding maniac! After the psychopath turns the handicapped helper home into Ground Zer0, Toxie emerges from the rubble and leaps back into action for some Toxic Avenging! It's time for our hero to get back into his "clean up evil" crusade, and what better way to start than with a good ol' fashioned Troma melee! On the side of good stands our janitorial juggernaut and against him, on the side of supervillainy, are the minions of Apocalypse Incorporated, who you can probably guess by the name aren't interested in making orange juice and dancing in the streets. Toxie's a politically correct hero too, slaughtering and maiming a Native American, an uzi-brandishing transvestite, a midget with a hammer and dancing headless men! Wow, Apocalypse Inc, despite being an evil corporation, sure believes in affirmative action and avoids discrimination... Despite their overwhelming numbers, the radioactive, uhm... well, insert your own 'r' word here to describe Toxie, I can't come up with all the witty adjectives and nouns around here... As I was saying, Toxie wipes about 20-or-so employees off the Apocalypse Inc payroll, which doesn't sit well with the pierced and vulgar board of trustees at AI.

Now the question is, how can the AI goons carry out their plans to turn Tromaville into a profitable nuclear holocaust (though I have no idea how that equation works) with Jersey's #1 hero back in his tutu and swinging his mop? Well, if you can't kill off the good guy, the next rule of the bad guy credo says get 'em out of the way... say, "other side of the world" out-of-the-way. By getting at Toxie through his psychologist, Apocalypse sends the mutated monster to find his long lost "father" Phinnias Junko in Tokyo, Japan. Our hero thinks this might be what fills the empty void in his life, so after a farewell screw with Claire, the Avenger hops on his windsurf board and cruises across the globe California style. But, Toxie's in for a surprise, because when he gets to the land of sushi and fuel efficient cars the Tokyo branch of Apocalypse Inc will be waiting to destroy the hideous hero with their latest creation: anti-Tromatons! For those of you unfamiliar with the genetic make-up of everyone's favorite toxic New Jerseyite, there are these molecules called "Tromatons" in Toxie's system that work like a radar detector for evil-doing. If there's something not-nice going on, Toxie will know where and instantly go into a vengeful blitzkrieg, violently dispensing justice with as much overkill as possible, not coming off this heroic high until the heart(s) of evil has stopped beating. The insidious anti-Tromatons are meant to destroy these Tromatons, which, being an integral part of his being, would equal a living meltdown for the big guy. Now that I think about it though, the anal retentive prick buried not-so-deep in my subconscious had to beg the question, "what exactly counts as evil?". I mean, by whose moral standard do these Tromatons function? If Toxie was taught by his mother that, for some reason, Chinese midgets and kangaroos were evil, would that mean he'd instinctively have to kill any Ho-Chi-Miniatures or boxing marsupials he came in contact with? Seriously, if he had been raised by racist paranoid parents, then performing hate crimes would actually be considered heroism to him and villainy to others, which would leave him, uh... damn it, sometimes I'm so technical and literal with this crap it makes me want to shit myself in disgrace...

Toxie tops of his aquatic voyage by emerging from a Tokyo beach is a style that would make a certain rubber suited city stomper jealous. Soon into his search for big daddy (I hate Adam Sandler so much...), Toxie rescues a native lady from the hungry hands (and other parts) of some would-be rapists. After he defeats the goons, one of which he turns into soup with his, uhm, nuclear hot breath (?!), the girl introduces herself as Masame and offers to help Toxie in his search for his dad and show him around the tourist traps too. She also joins him in a bizarre scene, as people dance in the streets to some Japanese punk music... boy, a lot of street dancing in this movie... Though a beloved member of Tromaville society, the people of Tokyo aren't used to seeing radioactive monsters... roaming... the... streets... Okay, you can't go a day in Japan without witnessing fire-breathing dinosaurs the size of office buildings or heavy metal zombie ghosts, but Toxie's different... cuz he's got such wide eyes! So, to help him blend in a bit more, Mas(ame) dressed him up like a typical Japanese businessman... and no one notices... Speaking of people with wide eyes, back in Tromaville Apocalypse Inc has taken over. With no hideously deformed creature of superhuman size and strength there to protect the fair city, the corporate demons have moved in and it's time to get back to a life of pollution and political corruption... like in first half of THE TOXIC AVENGER! The city's renamed Apocalypseville and any resistance from the community is met with the business end of a dump truck! No horses shall be spared!

Jumping back across the globe, Toxie finally finds his father, Phinnias "Big Mac" Junko! Of course, there's a little conflict of interest between father and son though, when it's revealed that daddy is a no good cocaine smuggler and into the white slave trade! Hmmmmm, that's gotta be awkward for a guy like Toxie. "Hi dad, I don't know how to tell you this, but because of your nefarious activities I'm going to have to dismember you and beat you to death with your own limbs. Oh, and I might have to shove a dirty mop down your throat and turn your organs into dog food". Christmas in the Junko household must be great. Apparently ashamed of his "son", Big Mac orders his ninja warrior bodyguards to make mincemeat out of young Toxie. Not down with being made the bitch, by daddy's friends or not, the Avenger battles back, defeating his pajama clad ninja opponents and renegade Kabuki actors with nothing but fish market produce. The only thing standing between him and turning his poppa into mush now is the the cheaply made, vomit spewing Piranha Man!... Who am I kidding, fish boy gets turned into sushi, we all saw that one coming. Somebody dig up Richard Dawson, because now it's time to start the Family Feud! Toxie and Big Mac ("with cheese") get into a sumo struggle, the eternal proving grounds for father and son competition. In the belly bashing, Mac infects Toxie with the anti-Tromatons, but he meets his own end at the blade of a distracted sushi chef, who's otherwise preoccupied with a naked Japanese babe with a heavy bleached bush... you'll understand if you ever see the movie. If you never do, well, then it's just gonna have to remain one of those unanswered enigmas of tie and space.

So, Big Mac's dead now. Toxie's killed his estranged father and shut down a good piece of the Japanese crime market at the same time. Now what? Oh yeah, Toxie's being killed by the anti-Tromatons. Well, what do the stars do when their bodies are weighed down with toxins? No, not Betty Ford, or even Betty White for that matter! Nope, when the big names need deep down cleaning they go through Sumo rehab! So, being the superstar he is, Toxie seeks the help of the local Sumo school to cleanse his body and soul of evil influences and it actually keeps him from melting into a puddle of puke. Now, with his task done and his health back in shape (the shape of a hideously deformed creature of superhuman size and strength of course), Toxie dons his new sumo diaper, hops on his windsurf board and cruises his dirty tutu back to Tromaville, err, Apocalypseville. Upon arrival and discovering his beautiful suburbia has been turned into a typical Troma nightmare, Toxie sets right to cleaning up the scum. AI is knocked back on it's ass in no time. But, is there still hope for them? Yes, and that hope comes in the form of the mysterious bad guy the Dark Rider (possibly a relative to David Hasslehoff or that Power Rangers knock off "Masked Rider"?). The Dark Rider is actually just a kamikaze thug on a motorcycle... with a heavy load of Nitroglycerine strapped to his chest! Unless Toxie can stop him, Dark Rider will blow up all of Apocalypseville, err, Tromaville! Commandeering a cab, Toxie gets right on it, as Dark Rider leads him on a chase all over town, leading to numerous "climactic" car scenes and a "dramatic" hovercraft chase. It ends with Toxie sending the guy sailing through the air and colliding with an innocent garage. The garage blows up and... wait a minute... Apocalypse Inc said that Dark Rider's explosion would take out the entire city... yet all it did was destroy a garage... it's not even that nice a garage to begin with... "Apocalypse"? More like A-pack-your-lips, as in "A-pack-your-lips so you can kiss my hairy ebon ass!"...

Having saved the day once more, Toxie finally gets to meet his real father. Yep, that fat bastard in sushi land was Big Mac Bunko, not Junko. This gives us the patented happy ending and leaves the CEO of AI to hitchhike his ass on outta town. Will he be back to cause more trouble for New Jersey's favorite son in a sequel? Well, having seen THE TOXIC AVENGER III: THE LAST TEMPTATION OF TOXIE, I can safely say... you'll have to wait for my review... I'm such a bitch. TOXIC AVENGER II falls from the graces created by it's originator. I think the creators tried to stuff way too much into the already weak plotline. You can't put an elephant on a tightrope then throw on the fat lady and a car load of clowns and expect the rope to strengthen just because there's more crap there, it's against the laws of physics. Your rope's just gonna snap and there's gonna be fat and grease paint smeared all over the crowd. Such is the case here. Also, though Troma's known for it's terrible special FX, I think the cost of shooting in Japan chewed up the film's budget, reducing the FX to well below what would be considered gold for a Troma film. It's not even silver. As a matter of fact, it's likely bronze, but not like a medal, but like a pair of baby shoes... whatever the fuck that means. Everything else is the usual Troma fare: bad acting, cheesy physical humor, toilet jokes and just flat out obscenity... just the way I likes it! So, though I was greatly disappointed by TOXIC AVENGER II, I can at least look back on THE TOXIC AVENGER with a song in my heart and look forward to TOXIC AVENGER PART III and beyond while humming "Zippidy-Doo-Dah" and juggling chainsaws... just smile and nod folks... :)

Sequels: THE TOXIC AVENGER PART III: THE LAST TEMPTATION OF TOXIE; the upcoming CITIZEN TOXIE

If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: TERROR FIRMER or CLASS OF NUKE 'EM HIGH