I'm a fan of a lot of Troma movies. Lloyd Kaufman's sense of humor, his critical views on late capitalist society (seriously) and the gross-out gore often really hit the spot for me.
The upside of "Return to Nuke 'Em High" is that quite a bit of that old spirit is alive and kicking. The initial scene (couple has sex and gets gorily dismembered/dissolved) shows this - but is already a bit off. Troma always employed shameless overacting, but here and elsewhere it is taken too far into pure parody.
Troma also always accepted that some jokes would fall flat (OK, that a lot of jokes would be duds), but made up for it with sheer numbers and total insanity what it threw at you. Here, the hit ratio is lower than usual, though.
Troma was further always about the gratuitous nudity, and there is quite a bit here as well. However, the lesbian sex scene between the two (very likable) female leads was neither hot nor funny (and the use of soft-focus was way off if this was in any way intended to play on "Blue is the warmest color").
What's new for Troma is splitting a movie into two parts - and it's not a welcome change. Troma used to be about packing as much into a movie as possible, and here the lackluster pacing is somewhat explained by the "to be continued" (though, kudos for stopping at a shower scene!).
The verdict: If you're a Troma-aficionado, then by all means watch this. It's certainly not their worst release ever. I just found watching it quite a bit less fun than expected, so don't expect too much. If you don't know what Troma is, then watch at least "The Toxic Avenger" (I & IV) and "Troma's War", as both are better movies, before this.
The upside of "Return to Nuke 'Em High" is that quite a bit of that old spirit is alive and kicking. The initial scene (couple has sex and gets gorily dismembered/dissolved) shows this - but is already a bit off. Troma always employed shameless overacting, but here and elsewhere it is taken too far into pure parody.
Troma also always accepted that some jokes would fall flat (OK, that a lot of jokes would be duds), but made up for it with sheer numbers and total insanity what it threw at you. Here, the hit ratio is lower than usual, though.
Troma was further always about the gratuitous nudity, and there is quite a bit here as well. However, the lesbian sex scene between the two (very likable) female leads was neither hot nor funny (and the use of soft-focus was way off if this was in any way intended to play on "Blue is the warmest color").
What's new for Troma is splitting a movie into two parts - and it's not a welcome change. Troma used to be about packing as much into a movie as possible, and here the lackluster pacing is somewhat explained by the "to be continued" (though, kudos for stopping at a shower scene!).
The verdict: If you're a Troma-aficionado, then by all means watch this. It's certainly not their worst release ever. I just found watching it quite a bit less fun than expected, so don't expect too much. If you don't know what Troma is, then watch at least "The Toxic Avenger" (I & IV) and "Troma's War", as both are better movies, before this.