There’s a new movie called “The Toxic Avenger” in theaters. Somehow, that might be a problem for its built-in audience.
This movie, which follows a sickly janitor who transforms into a mutant vigilante, is more of a tribute than a remake of the proudly crass 1984 superhero comedy of the same name. That earlier movie has become synonymous with the degenerate production company Troma Entertainment and both its grossout humor and punk-adjacent DIY sensibilities. Troma’s fans, past and present, will likely come to this new movie with loaded expectations, which won’t be helped by the unusual gap between the movie’s 2023 festival premiere and its 2025 theatrical release. Too bad for the fans, I guess.
Troma’s proudly strapped filmmakers could only dream of the budget, let alone the ensemble cast, at the disposal of actor turned filmmaker Macon Blair. It seems only fitting, then, that Blair’s movie doesn’t slavishly rehash Troma’s figurehead title. His “The Toxic Avenger” feels more like a Macon Blair comedy, like his 2017 blackly comedic noir thriller “I Don’t Feel At Home in This World Anymore” or some of the comic books that he’s scripted, particularly “Hellcity” and “The Long Road to Liquor City.” Blair’s Troma homage also frequently and uneasily shifts from straight-faced vigilante justice melodrama to over-the-top slapstick gore, a gooey chunk of which is sadly not realized with practical effects. “The Toxic Avenger” isn’t a bad little movie, but it is an acquired taste that even the pre-initiated might not have acquired.
Blair’s “The Toxic Avenger” starts in basically the same place as Troma co-founders Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz’s original. The hapless residents of Tromaville, I mean St. Roma, a hopeless little everytown, find themselves caught between a corrupt, eco-unfriendly public figure who deliberately reduces the town’s quality of life for quick bucks. That’s Bob Garbinger, Kevin Bacon’s unsavory corporate CEO and two-bit crime boss. Now it’s up to Winston (Peter Dinklage), a janitor who works for Bob’s company, to protect the people of St. Roma, who also happen to be overrun by a rock group called The Killer Nutz, who work for Bob and are led by his grotesque-looking brother Fritz (Elijah Wood).
Blair’s reboot then departs from Troma’s original, starting with a stock backstory for Winston. St. Roma’s protector has brain damage, bad insurance, no wife, and a sulking pre-teen boy (Jacob Tremblay). Then he pisses off Bob Garbinger and gets thrown into a vat of chemicals, which transforms him into a green-skinned mutant, voiced by Dinklage and physically performed by Luisa Gurreiro. After that, Winston’s monster hero takes on Bob and his Killer Nutz, ripping them apart with gory zeal. It’s too bad that this part of the movie doesn’t feel more like the product of a filmmaker who started making grisly DIY action-comedies with his neighbor Jeremy Saulnier, who shares Blair’s taste for cartoonish violence, practical effects, and nose-tweaking humor.
The rest of “The Toxic Avenger” revels in its surprisingly dry scatological humor, which is often more puckish than confrontational. Good thing that Blair’s working with actors who know how to underplay a goofy bit, most of which take aim at viewers’ expectations. If “The Toxic Avenger” is anything like its predecessors, it’s thanks to Blair and his collaborators’ apparent love of anarchic gags that take great pleasure in their patent too-muchness. Not every joke lands, but their sheer excess and volume leave even the most formulaic beats feeling alive with giddy mischievousness.
That said, it’s not always easy to get a handle on the type of comedy Blair’s pitching at. It’s also not hard to figure out or to find yourself already on the same wavelength as its broad type of humor. The movie’s cast members all seem to understand their assignments, which makes even the sketchiest material seem more robust. There’s also more technical polish, as well as a general knack for comic timing, than you might expect from a remake of “The Toxic Avenger.”
You might also wonder what the point of this remake is if the filmmakers aren’t going to play the hits in a familiar enough key. Imagine a cover band that doesn’t seem to care if you can keep up with its manic pace or slippery tone. The funniest thing about “The Toxic Avenger” might be the very high concept of turning Troma’s mop-wielding hero into a single dad with an anxious kid and a dead wife named Shelly Gooze. I laughed, is what I’m saying. You might, too, if you accept it as is. Because as lumpy and unpredictable as Blair’s “The Toxic Avenger” may sometimes be, he still gets that the key to making a good Troma homage is to do as the title of Kaufman’s DIY filmmaking guidebook commands: “Make Your Own Damn Movie!”
