{"id":12901,"date":"2025-08-30T16:57:17","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T20:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=12901"},"modified":"2025-09-30T22:31:55","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T02:31:55","slug":"the-toxic-avenger-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/08\/30\/the-toxic-avenger-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"The Toxic Avenger (2025)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Toxic Avenger<\/strong> (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cineverse\/Comedy-Horror-Sci-Fi-Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 102 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPA rating (strong violence and gore, language throughout, sexual references, brief graphic nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Macon Blair\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Macon Blair\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Will and Brooke Blair\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Dana Gonzales\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 29, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Peter Dinklage, Jacob Tremblay, Taylour Paige, Luisa Guerreiro, Elijah Wood, Kevin Bacon, Julia Davis, David Yow, Sarah Niles, Annette Badland, Sunil Patel, Margo Cargill, Shaun Dooley, Jonny Coyne, Abraham Lewis, Julian Kostov, Needa Spasova, Nencho Stefanov-Ninio, Duke Nwamerue, Mako-Dimitar Bozhilov, Kitodar Todorov, Sophia Vassili, Konstantin Ikonomov, Rebecca O\u2019Mara, Macon Blair, Jane Levy (voice).<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019d like to open my review of the quasi-remake of The Toxic Avenger <\/strong>with the opening of my review of the 1984 original:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are moments in every movie geek\u2019s life that help define who they will become. One of mine is the day in February \u201987 I rented The Toxic Avenger<\/strong>. It\u2019s the day I was introduced to the weird wonderful world of Troma. The owner of The Video Den made it an instant 99 cent rental he thought it was so awful. That NEVER happened with brand new releases. It didn\u2019t deter me though. Are you kidding? Like I\u2019m NOT going to rent a movie with the tagline \u201cThe First Superhuman Hero from New Jersey\u201d? I\u2019m sorry, have we met? I\u2019m the Movie Guy! ANYWAY, that\u2019s the day I became a fan and honorary citizen of Tromaville. \u201c<\/p>\n

I still hold the original in high esteem. Not only is it the film that put Troma on the map, it\u2019s a complete and total splatterfest! As such, I had strong reservations about the new one. More often than not, remakes don\u2019t do the originals justice. They\u2019re almost always inferior and totally unnecessary. Look no further than The Roses (a redo of 1989\u2019s The War of the Roses) which is playing in one of the other theaters at your local multiplex.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I had to travel quite a distance to feast my eyes on The Toxic Avenger<\/strong>. The closest theater showing it with daytime shows is across the state line in Delaware (about a 40-minute drive). So was it worth it? I\u2019m going to have to say a tentative yes. I\u2019m glad I got to see it, but as I expected, it\u2019s nowhere near as awesome as the original. It doesn\u2019t have the same low-budget DIY look and feel. It has name actors like Peter Dinklage, Elijah Wood and Kevin Bacon. The gore is all CGI which definitely takes away from the experience. It\u2019s needlessly overplotted. Unlike Lloyd Kaufman, the makers had a budget to work with. Once again, we see that more money doesn\u2019t always equal quality.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Another big difference is that the hero has more of a backstory. Winston Gooze (Dinklage, the angry elf from Elf) is a sad sack of a man. A widower, he\u2019s raising a preteen stepson, Wade (Tremblay, Wonder), with serious anxiety issues. He works as a janitor for BTH, a corrupt company run by sleazy CEO Bob Garbinger (Bacon, Hollow Man). His company has been poisoning the people of St. Roma (look closely at the name) with toxic waste for years. Former employee and whistleblower J.J. (Paige, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F) wants to expose them. Bob sends his weird-looking brother Fritz (Wood, Sin City) to stop her. He sends his guys, a hardcore punk band called The Killer Nutz, to kill her.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Meanwhile, Winston learns that he\u2019s terminally ill and has maybe a year left. His insurance, of course, doesn\u2019t cover the treatment he needs. He goes to Bob pleading for help. The a-hole blows him off. Winston, in turn, tries to rob his place of employment armed with a mop covered in neon-green toxic waste. His getaway is interrupted by J.J. who\u2019s running from the punk rock killers after stealing more evidence against BTH. They end up shooting Winston and dumping his body into a vat of toxic waste. That\u2019s when he is transformed into….. THE TOXIC AVENGER!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now hideously deformed, he\u2019s feared and hunted at first. That changes when he foils a robbery at a fast food place. He doesn\u2019t just kill the offenders; he f***s them up real bad. Hailed as a hero, he then sets his sights on Bob and his company. Somebody has to stop them. In turn, Bob orders Fritz and his gang to snatch Wade. I think you can guess where the story goes from there. Maybe, but you wouldn\u2019t be entirely right. It goes more OTT than you\u2019d expect.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019d be lying if I said I didn\u2019t enjoy The Toxic Avenger<\/strong> somewhat. It\u2019s fun in its own absurdist way. It doesn\u2019t just retell the story; it pays tribute to the original as well as a few other Troma titles. Pay attention to some of the names like the journalist working with J.J. His name is Melvin Ferd, a name absolutely familiar to fans. The antagonists have names like Togar, Rooney and Wormer. You\u2019ll know these names if you came of age in the 80s. Lloyd Kaufman himself shows up for a brief cameo. A lot of The Toxic Avenger<\/strong> is enjoyable. It just doesn\u2019t reach the delightful depths of the OG.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The cast does a good job because they\u2019re all clearly in on the joke. Bacon camps it up mightily as the main villain. Wood resembles Riff Raff from Rocky Horror. Dinklage looks like he\u2019s having fun. That is, until he\u2019s replaced by Luisa Guerreiro who plays his character post-transformation (Dinklage still provides the voice). Tremblay is believable, albeit in a cartoonish way, as an anxiety-ridden kid coping with his mother\u2019s death. The Killer Nutz are a live-action nightmare cartoon.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I don\u2019t like CGI gore so for me, that\u2019s the biggest turn-off in The Toxic Avenger<\/strong>. However, it\u2019s still fun to watch Toxie make radioactive mince meat of his opponents. The fast food robbery sequence is a cool homage to the original minus the guide dog getting shot and killed (thank God). One of the hostages is a kid wearing a bike helmet. Mercifully, his skull remains intact.<\/p>\n

\u00a0All in all, I\u2019d have to say that The Toxic Avenger<\/strong> is not a bad way to cap off the summer movie season. It\u2019s a fun movie that gorehounds will appreciate since it\u2019s being released in its unrated form. At the same time, it won\u2019t make your forget about the one that made Tromaville a destination. At least it\u2019s not a complete s*** show. That\u2019s always a plus, right?\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Toxic Avenger (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cineverse\/Comedy-Horror-Sci-Fi-Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 102 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPA rating (strong violence and gore, language throughout, sexual references, brief graphic nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Macon Blair\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Macon Blair\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Will and Brooke Blair\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Dana Gonzales\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 29, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Peter Dinklage, Jacob Tremblay, Taylour Paige, Luisa Guerreiro, Elijah Wood, Kevin Bacon, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12902,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scary-gory-wild-i-love-it"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/The-Toxic-Avenger-POSTER.jpg?fit=620%2C875&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12904,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12901\/revisions\/12904"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}