 CLASS OF NUKE EM HIGH II: SUBHUMANOID MELTDOWN (1991) Dir. Eric Louzil, 90 mins Well, all good things must come to an end, and here we are at the epic conclusion of Tro-March. And after the joys of killer condoms and rabid grannies, I’m going to stick to the familiar today with a second visit to Tromaville for Class of Nuke Em High II: Subhumanoid Meltdown. I enjoyed the first one fine – without it really rocking my world – and honestly I was expecting more of the same here. Honestly because this was a sequel I thought this would probably be a little worse, but I was rather proven wrong here. In fact, much to my surprise, I enjoyed this one mightily. Nuke Em High II picks up a number of years after the huge explosion that took out both the Tromaville Nuclear Facility, and the nearby high school, but never fear – both have been rebuilt, strangely enough within the same premises – because why not incorporate those two things together? Our story follows ace (school newspaper) reporter Roger Smith, a buff surfer guy also looking to get laid at every turn, to no avail I should add. The school itself is even more crazy than the previous film, and it almost feels better for going that much more extravagant. One of the things for me that makes this film an improvement on part one is its wry and self-knowing humour – Troma pokes plenty of fun at itself here, and that sort of fourth-wall breaking has always been something I’ve enjoyed in movies. Anyway, deep inside the nuclear plant, the dean and an evil professor are building up a race of subhumanoids – mostly distinguished apart from humans by the additional mouth they have where their bellybuttons should be. Our intrepid lead Roger Smith falls for Victoria after taking part in an – ahem – ‘experiment’, and when everything goes to hell again at Tromaville High School he’s determined to save his beloved. And what exactly is it they’re under the most threat from? Why, a giant toxic squirrel of course! As I mentioned earlier, this for me feels like a better movie than the first one all round. It is shot a bit cheaper, admittedly, but it really goes all out. I accused the first of pushing that bit too hard, true, but this one sticks the landing by being a much funnier movie and also having a plot that makes sense throughout and setting up all of its key points. Sure, it’s not exactly Shakespeare – we’ll save that one for Tromeo and Juliet – but it at least does all the fundamentals of a plotline right. I loved Brick Bronksy in the lead as Roger Smith, who was absolutely perfect as the dumb blonde with the big ambitions, a perfect epitome of the 80s flipping over into the 90s. For me this is going to be a movie with more memorable moments than its predecessor, so it’s bound to score more. That’s not to say the movie is without criticisms – some of its montages feel ultimately pointless, and some of the side performances are not all they might have been. The dean’s voice grates on me horribly – although it’s doubtless meant to. But generally these are minor quibbles in a film that never took itself too seriously and delivered a lot of wry smiles and some flat-out belly laughs too. It’s one of those very rare instances where the sequel improves on the first, and now I’m thinking I probably have to complete the trilogy at some point… RATING: 7.5/10. I can’t go nuts on a rating for this one, as it doesn’t reinvent the wheel or make me think differently about anything, but I had a lot of fun and that counts for plenty. It does a better job of making sense – and that is still important even in a weird gross-out comedy like this – and the main performances were far more likeable here than the one that kicked off the trilogy. I’ll be happy to head back to school if the third one can deliver at this sort of level – and that review will be coming some time soon I’m sure. It’s more of a B grade for this one at 7.5/10.    |
Archives
February 2022
|
RSS Feed
|
|