While it's hard to deny that we live in some truly dire times (I mean . . . *gestures at everything around us*), it's also pleasing to note that we now live in a world that has given us a new Toxic Avenger movie. And not just any Toxic Avenger movie. This is written and directed by Macon Blair, and has a cast that includes Peter Dinklage in the main role, Jacob Tremblay, Taylour Paige, Kevin Bacon, Elijah Wood, Julia Davis, and Sarah Niles.
Dinklage plays Winston, a man who will eventually be transformed into the titular (anti/super)hero, although his character is brilliantly portrayed by Luisa Guerreiro. Anyway, Winston is trying to bond with his step-son, Wade (Jacob Tremblay), both still grieving the loss of the main woman they loved, but has his standard routine of drudgery and self-doubt interrupted by a chain of events that lead to his body being dumped into a load of toxic sludge. And that's when The Toxic Avenger is born, just in time to help a plucky investigative reporter (J. J. Doherty, played by Paige) reveal the truth about a corrupt pharmaceutical company headed by Bob Garbinger (Bacon).
The first thing I want to say about The Toxic Avenger is that it's a bit too long, the runtime is just over 100 minutes, and it could have moved things into place in the first act much quicker than it does, but there's a very satisfying pay-off for most of the plot points set up here. While I enjoyed a lot of it, I feel that the pacing really works against it, and others may well feel the same.
Everything else I have to say about the film is pretty positive though, despite me not being as completely won over by it as others were. The cast is uniformly great, with Paige being an essential strong heartbeat for a film so populated with over the top villainy and silly grotesqueries. Dinklage has a lot of fun as the loser who watches his life go from bad to worse to toxic, Tremblay is able to be both a bit sullen and very vulnerable, as required, and Bacon, Wood, and Davis are a dangerous trio that wouldn't look out of place in a big-budget Batman movie. It's Toxie front and centre, but Paige plays her part so well that she helps to ground the ridiculous gore and gags, reminding you that there are people onscreen who are desperate for help . . . even if it comes in the shape of a very unlikely "hero".
It may keep itself slightly distanced from the worst elements of Troma Entertainment, where the main character originated, but fans will be happy to find that it has a spirit, and a commmitment to excessive amounts of gore and bodily harm, that aligns it nicely with body of work we've had throughout the decades from "Uncle Lloyd" and co.
There's room for improvement here, and room for even more detached limbs and geysers of blood, but Blair has done a hell of a job to walk a perilous tightrope. This should please both fans of the original movies and relative newcomers who go into their viewing with some idea of what it's aiming for. I'll be rewatching it, probably more than I would ever rewatch any of the other movies in the series, and I encourage others to at least throw some rental money towards it. How else am I going to get my long-gestating Class Of Nuke 'Em High remake made?
8/10
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