Macon Blair’s remake of The Toxic Avenger tries way too hard. It reminded me of those bad horror flicks that came out after Grindhouse that aped look and the feel of the old grindhouse movies but missed the point entirely. The problem is you can’t set out to make a cult movie. Troma didn’t do that with the original Toxic Avenger. They tried to make the best movie they could with what they had, even if the concept was strictly B material. The result was a genuine classic. Lloyd Kaufman’s blend of comic book hero action with lowbrow humor and outlandish gore captured lightning in a bottle. This remake tries to recapture that magic without the benefit of the lightning. Or the bottle.
This time, our hero is Winston Gooze (Peter Dinklage), a janitor who is killed by demented goons who dump his body into toxic waste. He is soon reborn as an unstoppable crimefighter who goes toe to toe with the nefarious Bob Garbinger (Kevin Bacon) whose questionable products are polluting the Earth. Just as he’s getting his footing as a superhero, Bob sets a trap for Winston by kidnapping his son (Jacob Tremblay).
The sole clever gag in the film occurs early on when we see a sign for the town, “St. Roma’s Village” that has a few letters smudged out, so it reads “Tromaville”. Other than that, the humor is obnoxious and intentionally campy, and the gore is ruined by quick-cut editing and obvious CGI. The tone also fluctuates wildly. They want us to care about the relationship with Toxie and his son while at the same time expecting us to laugh at the Epic Movie level of humor and applaud the mediocre gore.
The cast do what they can. Dinklage is sincere, but his Toxie never quite registers. Bacon looks like he’s having fun hamming it up, and yet he rarely gets anything worthwhile to do. The same goes for his henchman, Elijah Wood who looks like a combination of Riff Raff and the Penguin.
I don’t know. I might’ve been forgiving if they set out to remake Class of Nuke ‘Em High or Sgt. Kabukiman, but this is The Toxic Avenger we’re talking about here. Seeing someone (especially someone as talented as Blair) trying to duplicate one of the best cult movies of all time is just kind of sad and depressing, particularly when they don’t even come close to matching the absurdity and fun of the original.
In short, this remake is toxic indeed.
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