Starring: Mitchell Cohen, Matt Torgl, Pat Ryan, and Gary Schneider
Directors: Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz

In Tromaville, the toxic waste dump capitol of the world, the corrupt mayor (Ryan) presides over a mini-crime empire and corrupt police force that keeps the populace in terror while psychotic killers run rampant in the streets. That is until a bizarre and heroic monster (Cohen) appears and starts dealing out a particularly brutal brand of justice.

"The Toxic Avenger" is a movie that revels in its gratiutious sex, violence, and awfulness. The over-the-top acting, the cheesy writing, the sloppily choreographed fight scenes, the weak special effects... all are purposefully and studiously bad, resulting in a movie that's a send-up of superhero flicks, vigilante/action movies, and a tribute to the exploitation films of the '60s and '70s. It's also a movie that's a hell of a lot of fun.

This first movie in the Toxic Avenger series is different in tone from the ones that followed, so if you were introduced to "Toxie" through the comic books and cartoon shows from the early '90s, you may find this film a bit mystifying. (The blind girlfriend is a very different character, and the nature of Toxie's foes are also different, mostly because this film has its roots in a different genre than the ones that follow. It's got far more "exploitation flick" in its make-up than the others, which lean more in the spoof direction.

 Starring: Ron Fazio, Rick Collins, Mayako Katsuragi, and Rikiya Yasuoka
Directors: Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz

New Jersey's first superhero, the Toxic Avenger (Fazio) drives crime and evil from the village of Tromaville, turning it into a paradise for puppies, the disabled, tatoo artists, and people who enjoy dancing in the streets. This offends the deeply evil chairman of megacorporation Apocalypse, Inc. (Collins), so he concocts a scheme to send Tromaville's guardian to his doom in Japan while his evil corporate minions lay waste to Tromaville.

"The Toxic Avenger, Part II" has some very funny bits in it--the recurring joke about people dancing in the streets gets a chuckle from me every time it comes up--and Toxie's Grand Tokyo Adventure is a gas from beginning to end.

Unfortunately, the film suffers from a wind-up that's far too slow (the first attack by Apocalypse, Inc. on Tromaville's Home for the Blind seems to go on and on and on... and while the badly choreographed fights in the original "Toxic Avenger" film were funny, here they're just dull because they don't end. Yes, the limo/clowncar from which a never-ending stream of bad guys emerge is funny, but it's not enough to make up for the overall sequence. The film likewise seems to stall out when the Toxic Avenger returns to New Jersey and reclaims Tromaville for all the little people. What's worse, the gore present in the film is more stomach-turning than funny--the sequence where a fishmonger chops a guy's leg and arm to bits while oogling a naked woman is just plain gross.

The film does feature some good acting--Rick Collins is a great comedic bad guy, with some pretty funny lines--but over all, the bad far outweighs the good here. Compared with the craziness of the original "Toxic Avenger", this sequel just doesn't quite measure up, despite the happy citizens dancing in the streets of Tromaville and Tokyo.

Starring: Ron Fazio, Rick Collins, Phoebe Legere, and Lisa Gaye
Directors: Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz

The Toxic Avenger (Fazio) is feeling depressed and useless... he's ridden Tromaville of crime and evil, yet he can't give his blind girlfriend Claire (Legere) her fondest wish: The ability to see. Enter The Chairman of the Apocalypse Corporation (Collins) with an offer to give Toxie wealth, happiness, and means to restore Claire's vision. All Toxie has to do is sell his soul--pardon me--sign an endorsement deal and go to work for The Chairman as Apocalypse's spokesperson.

This third adventure of the first hideously deformed superhero from New Jersey is better than the first sequel to the original, but it still isn't as good as the original. "The Last Temptation of Toxie" features some very funny moments and the acting is better overall--Collins is even better as The Chairman than in the second film, and the build-up to a fairly obvious revelation about his character is well done and well played--but the film still lacks the bite of the original "Toxic Avenger" film.

Script-wise, the jokes are also funnier and all the main characters--goofy stereotypes that they are--are a bit more focused than in either of the first two movies. A drawback to it, however, is that Toxie seems to have forgotten what Apocalypse was up to in "Toxic Avenger Pt. 2" and the writers seem to forget about the "tromatons" that let him detect evil for most of the film. (I know, I know... I'm thinking waaay too hard about a Toxic Avenger flick.) And I never throught I'd say this, but the gets a bit too gory for me at times; the opening scene in the videostore just goes a tiny bit too far over the top for me.

In general, this is an entertaining film, if you're in the mood for pure, utterly goofy trash that that revels proudly in the fact that it's goofy trash. It's a superior effort to Pt. 2, but it still falls short of the original.

 Starring: David Mattey, Clyde Lewis (voice of Toxie), Heidi Sjursen, Michael Budinger, Joe Fleishaker, Paul Kymse, Lisa Terezakis, Debbie Rochon, Dan Snow, Ron Jeremy, and Trent Haaga
Director: Lloyd Kaufman
 

When an explosion at the Tromaville School for the Very Special causes the Toxic Avenger (David Mattey, voiced by Clyde Lewis) to trade swap places with his evil, alternate reality counterpart, the Noxious Offender (also Mattey and Lewis), Toxie must find his way home before all the good people of Tromaville are massacred.

"Citizen Toxie" has got to be one of the wildest, most chaotic movies ever made... but it's a controlled chaos, a chaos that shows that director Lloyd Kaufman is the king of cinematic weirdness. There really is no summary that can do this movie justice without giving the whole thing away. And even so, the Diaper Mafia, the intoxicated Sgt. Kabuki Man, Master Bater, the terrible sights of Amortville's hot dog factory where Toxie and Evil Kabuki Man have their showdown, and a duel to the death between two feuteses are things that mere words cannot capture. They must be seen and experienced!)

I doubt anyone but Kaufman and the Troma Team could have pulled off a film as bizarre, wildly illocigally, gloriously offensive, and down right hilarious as this film. I likewise can imagine anyone managing to make a movie that so is so deep in lowbrow territory while savagely lampooning movies that are expected to be treated as Art because of they are "relevant cinema" with Important Messages while still managing to get in a some serious social commentary at the same time. (I don't think there's a single "protected class" that is usually lionized in movies that isn't mocked here in a fashion that illustrates the cheeziness of those Important movies. The Rebel Retard--a spastic, angst-ridden, drug-using, sensitive, strong-willed high school outsider--is the perfect storm of Message Movie cliches... all he was missing was being a black, one-legged lesbian. (But that was made up for when a black homosexual who who is literally just a head becomes the friend he's always been looking for.)

Kaufman's movies may not be for everyone, but they are almost always entertaining, and "Citizen Toxie" is close to being one of Kaufman's best works. It seems that he and Troma in general are finding themselves futher and further on the cinematic fringe. This is a shame, because Kaufman and the company have been responsible for some truly fun movies over the past three decades or so. (Although, given the tenor of "Citizen Toxie", I suppose it's no surprise that Big Hollywood Players and other self-important naval gazers would be put off by a film like this one. It holds a mirror up to some of their attitudes without coming out and saying it... and I suspect that offends them more if they were lampooned openly. I suspect many of the Hollywood filmmakers and actors are so self-absorbed and self-deluded that they know there's something that nagging at them beyond the fact they're Politically Correct Sensibilities are being repeatedly kicked in the nads; I suspect they're so wrapped up in themselves to fail to see their blatant, hamfisted "relevancy" in their films is being kicked even harder... they KNOW something else is offending them, but they can't quite figure out what.)

If you enjoyed the original "Toxic Avenger" film or the "Class of Nuke 'Em High" movies, I think you'll get a tremendous kick out of "Citzen Toxie" as well.