The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie (1989)

When Troma founders Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz set out to make a sequel to The Toxic Avenger, they may have gone a wee bit overboard. The production's final result was over four hours of usable footage. Doubting that anyone would want to sit through a movie that long, Kaufman and Herz chopped the movie in half. The first half became The Toxic Avenger Part II, while the second half was turned into The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie. I've already reviewed the first two, so why not move onto number three?

Having completely eliminated all crime from Tromaville, the Toxic Avenger (Ron Fazio and John Altamura) is left with nothing to do. The welfare checks his blind girlfriend Claire (Phoebe Legere) receives just aren't cutting it, and Toxie can't get a job because nobody wants to hire a hideously deformed mutant. Unable to make ends meet, and faced with the opportunity for Claire to undergo a risky — and quite expensive — surgical procedure that would restore her sight, Toxie is forced to go to work for the villainous Apocalypse, Inc.

Using Toxie as their spokesman, Apocalypse, Inc. begins a very hostile takeover of Tromaville. The town has practically become one big chemical dumping ground, while Toxie becomes blind to his employer's sins. Why he seems to have forgotten just how evil Apocalypse, Inc. is after having confronted them at the end of Part II, I have no clue. But maybe that's the side effect of the job the company's chairman (Rick Collins) has on the side. See, the truth is he's the devil. You read that right. It's Toxie versus Satan in what may be the Toxic Avenger's fiercest battle yet.

At the end of my review of The Toxic Avenger Part II, I said that I hoped Part III would hold up better than Part II had. It had been nearly fifteen years since I last saw either of them, and Part II wasn't nearly as good as I'd remembered it being. Sadly, Part III isn't as good either. It's a better movie than Part II, but it's still a disappointment.

As Part III was shot simultaneously with Part II, Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz are sitting in the directors' chairs here too. Their work is still good, especially since the movie isn't as all over the place as Part II. It gets Toxie back to Tromaville to fight evil in his natural element, just like the awesome first movie.

Oddly enough, I got the feeling that Part III was the exact opposite of Part II. While Part II's climactic chase scene felt tacked on and really rushed at that, the fight between Toxie and the devil goes on forever. It must eat up at least the last half hour of the movie. It reaches a point where I thought it would never end.

The writing by Kaufman and Guy Partington Terry does show a lot of improvement, considering that the movie doesn't have to spend so much time with Toxie screwing around in Japan. The only problem is that Toxie fell into a plot hole and became a tremendous idiot. How would he not remember that Apocalypse, Inc. is evil? How would he not remember them trying to get rid of him and take over Tromaville? Is it so wrong to expect a little consistency, even out of a Troma movie?

The acting quality remains the same as Part II, with the cast ranging from bad to forgettable. Phoebe Legere still totally sucks, Ron Fazio continued to be pretty good as the voice of Toxie, and Rick Collins was a whole lot of fun once again. Collins's overacting is so entertaining that I almost hope the real devil is like that. That'd make the afterlife so much funnier.

While I've said that the movie is an improvement over Part II, it's still not as good as it could have been. That's the thing about nostalgic memories; they'll sometimes play tricks on you. Unfortunately, I honestly cannot give it anything higher than two and a half stars. I do wonder, though, how these two sequels would have turned out had they stayed one movie. I guess we'll never know.

Final Rating: **½