The Toxic Avenger Review
7/10
The idea of a major movie studio remaking any Troma film feels sacrilegious. Their brand of sincere trash works best on a smaller budget, where you can see the passion the creators and crew put into each project. Troma films are low-brow, juvenile, and gross in a fantastic way. Nothing is off limits with them, and their films delight in offending as many sensibilities as possible. No Hollywood studio would dare make something like Tromeo and Juliet or Poultrygeist. Trey Parker’s film Cannibal: The Musical is probably my favorite of all the many movies they have put out.
When I first heard that their most iconic franchise, The Toxic Avenger, was getting a Hollywood reboot, my instinct was to be wary of it. Stripping away the independent spirit that Lloyd Kaufman gives Troma is a surefire way to trip over your ambitions. I was willing to give this reimagining the benefit of the doubt when I heard it was being written and directed by Macon Blair. His previous film, I Don’t Feel at Home in this World Anymore, was an excellent debut with a distinct directorial vision. I was cautiously optimistic that he would do justice to the original film.
I saw this new Toxic at Beyond Fest in Los Angeles. I’ve been going to the festival for a few years, and I love how chaotic and fun it always is. The audiences are passionate and happy to be a part of the mania. A viewing experience like that is bound to make any film more enjoyable. While this new version of Toxic Avenger does not have the unhinged gleeful madness of the original, it does manage to be sufficiently ridiculous and enjoyable. Macon Blair makes a few changes to the original story to make his film a bit different.
Firstly, the lead is a not a lusty youth pining after a girl. Instead, our hero Winston (Peter Dinklage), is a down-on-his-luck stepdad whose wife died tragically, leaving him with a distant son, Wade (Jacob Tremblay.) This shift in generation from a younger to a middle-aged character gives the film an element of melancholy that wasn’t present in the original. Whether or not that was a smart decision depends on how closely you think Blair should have kept to Kaufman’s vision. From my perspective, I think it works well and gives the film a different kind of heart.
It helps that Dinklage and Tremblay have a strong dynamic that feels real. Wade doesn’t hate his stepdad; he just feels like an outcast in general and doesn’t connect with him. If anything, the film could have made Wade’s outcast status more prominent. We don’t gain much understanding of who he is. All we know is he was close with his mom, and he wants to do some kind of dance at a school talent show. Just when he is close to doing the dance, he bails and gets embarrassed on social media who are shaming him. I think the film would have been better if it amplified Wade’s feelings of being an outsider so he could connect more with Winston.
Winston works as a janitor at an evil corporation called BT Healthstyle, run by the villainous Bob Garbinger (Kevin Bacon). Bacon is clearly relishing playing a villain and goes all out with mustache-twirling glory. His hunchback brother Fritz (Elijah Wood) looks like Danny Devito as The Penguin from Batman Returns. The other bad guys to contend with are an Insane Clown Posse knockoff band called Killer Nutz, who act as corporate henchmen. Why Blair chose to parody Insane Clown Posse in a 2023 film, I have no idea. They are not exactly the hippest reference, though the band does provide some of the best laughs in the film with how ridiculous they are. There is one member of the band whose sole purpose in life is to flip. That’s it, he’s the parkour guy. It’s not exactly clever writing, but its idiocy is part of the charm.
Winston’s eventual turn into the telltale hero Toxic Avenger is where the story becomes more focused. This happens soon after Winston receives terrible news of a dire medical diagnosis that his corporate health insurance won’t cover. Though there are moments that are played for laughs here, Dinklage’s anguish is sincere and gives the film an emotional core that it needs. That is not to say the film is a perfect deconstruction of superheroes. If anything, it is far more restrained than I was expecting.
He becomes a deformed mutant after an unfortunate incident leading to him being dumped in green ooze. Winston’s struggle to find his humanity and connect with his son has a real sincerity that doesn’t come across as forced. His journey to becoming a superhero is not exactly subtle. It involves limbs being ripped off, guts being pulled out of unpleasant areas, and blunt satirical jabs. One action scene is where the film is at its best, balancing absurdity and over-the-top violence with Winston’s growing realization of what he has become.
Troma films are notorious for goofy comedy where no topic is off limits and for having copious amounts of gore and nudity. This new Toxic Avenger definitely has substantial quantities of the red stuff, but it feels tame compared to what we already have seen in Troma’s previous films. That is my main issue with this film: it doesn’t push the limits of bad taste far enough. The comedy moments are hit and miss and often feel too inspired by Marvel quips rather than carving out its own comedic identity. There is only one moment of nudity I can remember, and it was so random it seemed like it was put in at the last minute.
We’ve already seen several successful R-rated superhero films such as Deadpool, Logan, and Blade. This new iteration of Toxic Avenger does not stand out in the same way as those films do. It struggles to balance its trashy origins with a heartfelt story. Despite the occasional stumble, it is still an entertaining film that justifies its existence and doesn’t just copy the original. I do wish it were crasser and trashier, but perhaps that is just my nostalgia for the original film speaking. If it does well enough to warrant a sequel, maybe Macon Blair will take off the kid gloves and go full-on Troma.
