Way back in 1984, a little company burst (pun entirely intended) onto the low budget scene with “The Toxic Avenger,” a tale of a mutated and mutilated janitor that poked fun at superhero stories and monster movies in equal part. That film helped put its studio, “Troma Entertainment,” on the map, and they’d later be responsible for helping to spawn the careers of the likes of Matt Stone, Trey Parker, Oliver Stone, James Gunn, Eli Roth, and Samuel L. Jackson. They even originally released “My Neighbor Totoro” in the U.S! Now, over 40 years after the original splattered onto the silver screen, we have the long in purgatory remake from writer/director Macon Blair (“I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore,” “Green Room”) of “The Toxic Avenger.”
Winston Gooze, played by Peter Dinklage (“Game of Thrones,” “The Station Agent”), is a down on his luck stepdad reeling from the death of his wife and looking after his stepson Wade, played by Jacob Tremblay (“Room,” “Good Boys”), in the aftermath. After being diagnosed with a fatal disease, Winston begs for the help of his boss Bob Garbinger, played by Kevin Bacon (“Footloose,” “Tremors”), the CEO of evil pharmaceutical company BTH, who declines to help. This results in Winston becoming mutated into a half-melted, mangled version of himself that becomes known as the Toxic Avenger, voiced by Dinklage and performed by Luisa Guerreiro.
While the plot takes a wildly different approach to the material than the 1984 original, the guts of it are still the same. There’s a surprising sweetness to the material and the way the film sets up Winston’s transformation. A lot of time is spent setting up Winston’s character and lonely feeling in the world and it makes his emotional and physical transformation far more interesting as a result. It doesn’t prevent the first act of the film from grinding to a halt at times as various characters are set up, world building is established, and things are generally fleshed out. Once Winston becomes Toxie, things ratchet up: the pacing gets better, and things get more interesting.
Dinklage does a great job completely throwing himself into as sad of a sack as Winston is, both physically early on and in his vocal performance. He has a great talent for imbuing his voice with even subtle emotions and that, coupled with an excellent physical performance from Guerreiro, makes Toxie really come to life. Tremblay does some interesting work, as he gets the most emotional material to deal with outside of Dinklage, and the pair do have a great awkward father son relationship to work through. The rest of the cast, meanwhile, completely chews through the material in the best possible way.
Bacon is a hoot, and Elijah Wood (“The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King,” “Happy Feet”), playing opposite him as his deformed mad scientist brother Fritz, keeps that energy up phenomenally. Taylour Paige (“@Zola,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”) appears as BTH whistleblower J.J. and she plays the straight man in all of this madness to excellent effect. A surprise standout is scene stealer David Yow (“Dinner in America,” “I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore”) as Guthrie, a homeless confidant of Winston’s post-transformation. Not only is he hysterical, but there’s also a slight madness and sweetness to his behavior that makes him stand out in a crowd of equally insane side characters.
Despite its low budget and scrappy technical merits, this modern version of St. Roma’s Village (aka Tromaville) is effectively stylized and cartoonish in the best ways. Washed out colors paint the daytime events in a flat trashy persona, and the nighttime shadows and neon give things a liveliness that manages to still be trashy without betraying the daytime styles. Toxie’s practical effects are exceptionally impressive, especially on the low budget, and the film’s heavy usage of stylized colored lighting accentuates everything. Virtually every piece of practical makeup and prosthetics looks excellent. When it comes to the CGI blood and gore however, those effects are decidedly less good looking. While these elements are copious, they suffer the most from the lower budget, popping off the screen in the worst way with lower quality spurts and an unintentionally fake look.
Speaking of blood and gore, just as much as the original film and virtually anything baring the Troma Entertainment name, “The Toxic Avenger” is not for the faint of heart. Eyes pop, brains spurt blood like fountains, and there’s all manner of blood, viscera, and body parts strewn about the scenery. This violence is part of the appeal, certainly, but it doesn’t betray the brain working behind the scenes as well. While it certainly feels overstuffed, Blair’s interpretation of Toxie’s origins takes on organized crime, polluting pharmaceutical companies, and corrupt politicians. It absolutely doesn’t go for the cheap way of rehashing the original film, but it's hard to say it pulls these themes off gracefully or to their fullest potential.
That’s likely because, for as much as it is its own version of events, Blair’s film is a clear love letter to not only Toxie and Troma, but to the entire kind of B-movie shlock fest films that the company helped exist. Without Troma, we don’t have “Evil Dead,” “South Park,” likely the U.S. releases of Ghibli films, or even the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films. While references to those aren’t involved, Blair still treats the studio with the reverence it deserves and invites. There are references and tributes to various Troma works spread throughout, including a cameo from original “Toxic Avenger” director and studio founder Lloyd Kaufman, and it not only fleshes out the world of the film even more, but it showcases just how much heart the film has beating underneath, almost in spite of its other, more objectionable aspects.
"The Toxic Avenger” is certainly not for everyone, but a big beating heart and love of the genre and character helps catapult this film above the shlocky “direct to video” remake status it so easily could have claimed. Dinklage delivers a fantastic new version of the character, and despite a slow start and some low-quality CGI effects, the film remains a mushy, splattery good time with a surprisingly big heart beating underneath its charred, half-melted husk. 3.5/5
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