(2023) The Toxic Avenger - A Superhero Film Definitely not For Every One

As the second of our movie marathon day, we decided to see this film. It was something that I was not sure if it would be liked by my wife, but she still wanted to accompany me. All right then, let's find out more, shall we?

Brief Story Line

Winston Gooze (Peter Dinklage - Transformers: Rise of the Beast, The Croods: A New Age etc) was just an ordinary janitor who worked for the most hazardous company in the city called BTH, owned by dirty businessman Bob Garbinger (Kevin Bacon -The Bondsman TV series, Leave the World Behind etc). Winston had been looking after his step son Wade (Jacob Tremblay - Luca, The Predator 2018 version etc) ever since the mother passed away even though their relationship was a bit rough. Due to unforeseen circumstances, Winston was somehow exposed to the toxic waste of BTH which gave him super strength but made him looked like a monster. Unfortunately his new looks made him frightening to everyone including Wade.

Meanwhile JJ Doherty (Taylour Paige - Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom etc) had been trying to look for proof that BTH was responsible for her mother's sickness and exposed their secret. However, it was dangerous for her as she had to avoid being captured by Bob's younger brother Fritz (Elijah Wood - The Monkey, Yellowjackets TV series etc) and his goons. 

So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

To be honest, I never heard of Toxic Avanger until I saw his name appeared in the trailer few weeks ago. I noticed that the film looked outrageous with a strong unique sense of humor & gore nature (it was hilarious seeing so many "Censored" scenes during the trailer). Anyway it certainly looked like a B movie with low budget but it did not make me lose interest. In fact it made me curious in finding out about despite the possibility of not liking it all. 

Good thing that I already saw its trailer before and knew what to expect, as the film was indeed very extreme in everything. From the rather cheap looking effects to the obvious studio setting of the BTH factory and to the extreme ways of killings with blood spattering all over the place. However, there was also a sense that the movie was actually done seriously as the story was quite nicely written and the characters were quite likable. I thought Macon Blair (director of critically acclaimed I Don't Feel at Home in this World Anymore & writer of Hold the Dark and few others) who wrote and directed this movie did a pretty good job and critics were fond as well. Btw, I read more info about the film and find out that it was actually a 2023 production but only had its US theatrical release in August 2025.

From the information I gathered on the movie, it was actually a remake of the 1984 original film with the same title directed by Michael Hertz & Lloyd Kauffman. It became cult classic and spawned 3 sequels, TV series and even Video game & musical. However, I believe its uniqueness was definitely not for everybody, just like this latest remake. I think audience would either embrace it or just plain hate it but no inbetween. For me though, I could still understand the appeal and did enjoy it a bit, though it was not exactly my taste. My wife was kind enough not to trash it completely and still managed to laugh occassionally.

The cast looked to enjoy themselves in here, including the one that we really admired Elijah Wood who was willing to wear make up that made him looked like the Penguin from DC comics. Aside from the names I mentioned above, there were also support cast such as Julia Davis (Nighty Night comedy series etc) as Bob's assistant Kissy, Julian Kostov (Creature Commandos TV series etc) as the leader of Killer Nutz, Jonny Coyne (Alcatraz TV series etc) as crime boss Thad Barkabus and several others, including cameo of Macon Blair himself as Dennis. The film had duration of 103 minutes including closing credits. It had a long humorous post end credit scene in case you are interested.

Overall this was something that would satisfy audience looking for campy humor and expecting gore violent scenes. After reading more on the original film, I thought that the 1984 story seemed to be better compared to ths modernized remake. However, I understand that fans of the original were still entertained by this. It was not remarkably enjoyable movie for me and my wife but it was tolerable for us. However, we would not be recommending this to general audience, except for people who have the taste for such film. You can give this a try if you want, but definitely do not expect the fantastic superhero story or take it too seriously.

Mike's movie moments rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars