When rebooting, rebirthing, or revitalizing a B-franchise that is so iconic and loved by a fan base there are certain things that have to be done right and well for it to be well received, because at the end of the day its going to be a movie made by the fans for the fans, and with Macon Blair’s newest outing taking on Lloyd Kaufman’s deranged superhero Toxie, The Toxic Avenger reboot/remake/relaunch is finally here after splashing down in 2023 and being deemed ‘un-releasable’, so the question has to be asked – does this movie truly suffer the fate it was once deemed, or is it a harmless take on our friend and saviour Toxie?
The movie focuses on Winston (Peter Dinklage) a janitor for local corrupt company that is responsible for dumping toxic waste into the environment, and making the little town amply playing homage to Troma (Lloyd Kaufman’s production company) a cesspool. He is with his step son, Wade (Jacob Tremblay) whose struggling to fit in and cope with his mothers death, refusing to accept Winston as his father (step father but refuses to call him dad or let him really parent in much of any way). While on the other side of this story is JJ Doherty (Taylour Paige) who wants to expose Bob Garbinger (Kevin Bacon) and his brother Fritz (Elijah Wood) for turning their town into a cesspool of hell, dumping toxic waste, and being in bed with the mob (amongst some other revenge points that get later revealed).
Later on Winston is informed that he is diagnosed with some form of a brain disorder, unknown to the audience as the audio is bleeped out, and to cope with this he needs some experimental treatment that his platinum work insurance will not cover. Without knowing what else to do, Winston turns to Bob – his boss, and approaches him at a work soiree to ask for help – after thinking he agrees, Bob gets his assistant to lure him away, and deal with him. This ends up with Winston getting shot in the face and dumped into water refinery with his toxic waste sludge mop so all traces of him are thrown away and thus the Toxic Avenger is born. Toxie (as he likes to be called) and JJ Doherty end up teaming up together, by divine intervention to take down Bob and his company in this not gory enough, not unrated enough, not campy enough take on the madness that Lloyd Kaufman birthed.
Macon Blair has some credits under his belt (an episode of Room 104, Hold the Dark) but taking on such an iconic franchise and character seemed to be a little too much here, or the studio interference was out of control, its hard to say because this is an unrated cut of a movie that was deemed ‘impossible to release’. There is nothing truly unrated worthy in this, and the 5 seconds of Toxie’s appendage certainly doesn’t deserve the unrated label. There is a lot to love, and while it is campy in a 2020+ lens it’s not campy or trashy enough, The Toxic Avenger is B-movie to the max, and it’s a cult classic because of it, the 2023 (released in 2025) version feels polished and not as rough around the edges and passionate as the Toxie audiences have come to love, we want more gore, more blood, more chaos, more Toxie!
The cast here mostly works, Peter Dinklage being the standout. While a good third of the movie he is Winston trying to make ends meet and ensure his child’s safety while he’s Toxie there is a certain level of unhinged blast he has playing the character that just shines and is excellent here. Similarly Kevin Bacon and Elijah Wood are hamming it up something ungodly, but they could’ve definitely been more campy and silly in their performances. Taylour Paige and Jacob Tremblay are the weaker links – they just needed something more to do and maybe be a little less hollow and unflushed out.
Overall, The Toxic Avenger will satisfy fans of the original Kaufman movies, but it won’t hit the itch of watching those movies overall. It doesn’t recreate that magic as much as one had hoped, and truly needs an audience to let it shine and become another Bonafide cult classic. While there is no real harm or foul presented in The Toxic Avenger by Macon Blair, and Dinklage shines in the role – Toxie doesn’t hit the same way as Kaufman’s vision and its shoe’s unfortunately don’t get filled fully.
