Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV — the newest offering from Troma Entertainment — is a perfectly horrid example of irreverence taken to the realm of irrelevance.
Crassness seems to be the taste of the times, and Toxie certainly delivers in that regard. African-Americans, the meat packing industry, public schools, Hitler, abortion clinics, environmental controls, Ron Jeremy: No one is spared from satire in this campy attempt at social commentary. No one is spared, and no one is entertained.
Citizen Toxie is perhaps the greatest waste of effort ever committed to film. Certainly all the fake blood and prosthetic phalluses could have been more useful in some other movie, or not at all.
In true Troma style, the movie opens with an effectively offensive sequence featuring innumerable killings, spontaneous defecation and other socially deviant behavior.
Starting out as an offbeat attempt to observe the state of violence in culture, the film quickly disintegrates into a gore-fest so harsh that the only thing it actually succeeds at is desensitizing the viewer. The count of disembodied limbs rises so rapidly that the only effect is a brain numbing of epic proportions.
As soon as the utterly detestable script begins to show its ugly head, a breast is quickly flashed to distract the viewer. The movie attempts to hide its complete lack of worth behind a barrage of equally worthless gags. The problem is that none of the jokes are any good.
The entire movie is so forced and trite that any redeeming qualities are quickly submerged in a sea of filth. The humor is so flat and cliché that even the ASPCA might consider chaining 1,000 monkeys to 1,000 typewriters if there was even the slightest possibility of something better being written. Certainly there would be fewer feces thrown about that room then the one in which this movie was conceived.
The movie even goes as far as to parody Citizen Kane. Is the world really big enough for another Orson Wells allusion?
Oh, but the fun doesn’t end there. The Wizard of Oz and the Matrix are next on the chopping block. These references are so unfunny and underhanded that the viewer will be disappointed at themselves for even getting the joke. You can see everything coming from a mile away. The boredom created is so engrossing that you may actually find yourself saying, “School shootings? That is so ’99.”
This is without mentioning anything of the awful acting, editing, sound production, set design, typography and just about every other facet of production involved with this movie. Even narration from Stan Lee does nothing to save this sinking ship of a film.
This is a momentous misstep in the history of cinema and a massive step backwards for all of western civilization.
Troma would not have it any other way.
Robert Algeo can be reached at Nategray1@aol.com
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