Tweet
Released by: Troma
Released on: April 28th, 2015.
Director: Lloyd Kaufman, Michael Herz
Cast: Ron Fazio, Phoebe Legere, John Altamura, Rick Collins, Rikiya Yasuoka
Year: 1980
Purchase From Amazon
The Movie:
The adventures of 'the first superhero from New Jersey' continue with The Toxic Avenger Part II, the first sequel to director Lloyd Kaufman's 1984 classic. This time around, The Toxic Avenger (Ron Fazio), who has basically finished riding the streets of Tromaville, New Jersey of crime, has settled down into your typical domestic life. He cares for his wife, Claire (Phoebe Legere), and he still loves his mother (Jessica Dublin) but he yearns for action and adventure.
All of this changes when his psychiatrist (Ericka Schickel), who is, unbeknownst to Toxie, on the payroll of a company called Apocalypse Inc., tells our hero that he's got daddy issues. That's right, the reason Toxie freaks out from time to time is because he never knew his father! But there's hope - she tells him that his dear old dad is alive and well and living in the Land Of The Rising Sun. As such, our intrepid superhero says goodbye to his family and heads east to Japan in hopes of tracking down his estranged father. Helping him in his quest is a beautiful Japanese woman named Masami (Mayako Katsuragi) who assists him in finding Big Mac Bunko (Rikiya Yasuoka) - his dad. While Toxie is in Japan trying to sort out his past, Apocalypse Inc. are able to take advantage of his absence and under the control of its leader (Rick Collins), exploit the local populace for their financial gain.
The Toxic Avenger Part II is entertaining enough but never quite manages to hit the same highs as the original film. Part of this is due to the fact that a lot of the cast has been changed up here but more than that, there are pacing problems aplenty. The site of Toxie windsurfing his way to Japan is amusing, particularly as he emerges from the sea 'Godzilla style' but there are a lot of scenes in the movie where Toxie just sort of wanders around without doing a whole lot of anything. Sightseeing is awesome and everything but it doesn't always make for the most interesting movie, even if the person doing the sightseeing is a mutant with a mop.
More action would have gone a long way towards making this a better film. When things do get down to business the movie features a good bit of the over the top gore that has become a trademark of Troma films. We get some welcome nudity and weird sex too, the obvious contender there being the love scene between Toxie and Claire. Phoebe Legere is pretty easy on the eyes, though her acting won't win her any awards. But again, there's something lacking here. Troma has made worse films than this to be sure but this movie marked the beginning of the decline that The Toxic Avenger would suffer, culminating in the fairly terrible Toxic Avenger III: The Last Temptation Of Toxie before getting things back on track with the fourth film.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The Toxic Avenger Part II arrives on Blu-ray from Troma framed at 1.78.1 in a transfer that BDInfo identifies as being an MPEG-4 AVC encode in 480i format at 29.97 frames per second in anamorphic widescreen. It actually appears to be a 720p transfer (so says the display info on the trusty Blu-ray player), however. So yeah, like their recent 'Blu-ray' release of Rabid Grannies, this disc is a bit of a mess. Does it look better than the past DVD release? Sure, but that's not saying much. This is watchable enough but really, there's no excuse for this, it's a sloppy mistake to make, particularly on a flagship title like this (let's face it, Toxie is what Troma is best known for). Colors look okay but mild compression artifacts appear (the video takes up just under 17GBs of space on the disc) and really, this should have had a fair bit more detail than it does here. What exactly Troma have done here is mysterious, as the UK Blu-ray release from 88 Films featured a 1080p high definition transfer.
Audio chores are handled by a Dolby Digital 2.0 mix in English, no alternate language options or subtitles are provided. Not surprisingly this basically sounds like the DVD… because it's lossy mix. You'll have no trouble following the dialogue and the levels are okay but again, this is another case of Troma not bothering to take full advantage of what the format can offer and instead taking the easy way out.
The main extra on the disc is an audio commentary from director Lloyd Kaufman. This is a fairly engaging track. Say what you will about the man but Kaufman is a good speaker and a strong storyteller so as he details his exploits making this picture, his trademark sense of humor e evident throughout, this remains an easy listen. He covers the film's Japanese connections, censorship issues that he ran into, financing problems, effects work, location shooting and quiet a bit more. Kaufman also appears in a newly shot introduction that plays before the main menu loads in which he is seen travelling in Denmark.
Aside from that, we get a four minute long interview with The Toxic Avenger himself (an amusing enough in character piece) entitled At Home With Toxie, a quick two minute interview with actress Lisa Gaye about her role as Malfaire and a three minute Toxie On Japanese TV bit is also included here, in which The Toxic Avenger… appears on Japanese TV. Also found on the disc is a quick two minute featurette entitled The American Cinematheque Honors 40 Years Of Troma.
Additionally we get a collection of Troma trailers, Kaufman's original DVD intro to the movie, the Radiation March short that has haunted Troma releases since the dawn of time, animated menus and chapter selection. As this is a Blu-ray/DVD Combo pack, the release also includes a DVD version of the movie that appears identical to the previously released Troma disc that was included in the out of print Tox Box collection, meaning that it's got the old fullframe transfer on it rather than the 'new lovingly remastered HD presentation' featured on the Blu-ray.
The Final Word:
The Toxic Avenger Part II is a reasonably entertaining sequel but it can't hold a candle to the original or to the insanity of something like Citizen Toxie. That said, it has its moments and Troma fans should get a few cheap thrills out of it. Sadly, the Blu-ray is barely a Blu-ray at all - it's hard to recommend this disc when there's a superior version out there, even if that superior version is an import (albeit a region free one). Troma's track record on Blu-ray has some winners but so too does it have some losers, and this one, unfortunately, falls into the latter category.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
