The Toxic Avenger

There are several summers i can remember from my youth for a number of reasons. I had my first crush in a girl in the late 80´s in a summer camp, i went to see my very first double concert in an arena seeing Rod Stewart and Brtitish rock band Status Quo the same night ( the tickets was a gift so why not ? ), all the Swedish Midsummer celebrations with my grandfather Ingvar getting drunk. So let´s move forward to the summer of 1993 when i was going to a summer film school project for young people. This was a summer school project for teenagers who had no summer jobs and just wanted to do something during summer. The idea was to learn how to use a camera to film from different angles, learn camera technique, practise shooting different scenes to prepare doing a fake news show where my friend André was supposed to be the news anchor. We did 4 episodes all together and made up news stories, the best news report was about disabled people doing a swimming contest. We had 2 teenagers act disabled in the swimming pool and they were hillarious. I know you are not supposed to laugh at certain things when it comes to being disabled, but this was done in a classy was and not offensive. Almost like old school British comedy i would say. Anyway, at the last week of summer film school we were allowed to watch movies at film school. We had completed the news show and were just chilling watching B movies on VHS. This was the first time i came across the Troma film cult classic known as The Toxic Avenger. I have never heard of this film before so this became a personal favourite for many years. The story of mopping boy Melvin Ferd ( Mitch Cohen ) who cleans the local gym in Tromaville, New Jersey. Everyone hates the ugly looking nerd Melvin and especially by health guru Bozo ( Gary Schneider ) and his girlfriend Julie ( Cindy Manion ). One day they do a prank on him and chase him through the gym, it ends with Melvin jumping out the window and lands in a drum of toxic waste. This is where he turns into The Toxic Avenger, the new hero of Tromaville. This is truly one of the greatest 80´s cult movies of all time, hillarious, crazy, and violent all at the same time from directors Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman. The sequels was not as good as the first film so when i heard a remake was going to be made i was skeptical. Can you really succeed doing a remake on such a classic film? I bought a digital copy of this remake to simply find out if this was going to be better than i expected. Is this new adaptation of The Toxic Avenger worthy a movie night or is this a disaster from start to finish?

Janitor Winston ( Peter Dinklage ) is a hard working single father trying to do the best for his son Wade ( Jacob Tremblay ). When he finds out he have a very serious disease and may not survive more than 6 months, he tries to get help from his CEO known as Bob Gardinger ( Kevin Bacon ), but he basically mock his employee. In Tromaville there is a criminal gang known as The Killer Nutz, who one night attack Winston out in the streets and dump him inside a vat of chemicals. Winston turn into a creature known as The Toxic Avenger ( Lisa Guerreiro ) who will soon become the hero of Tromaville, fighting criminals with his toxic mop. He will clean up the streets of Tromaville and make sure Bob Gardinger no longer will be in control of this city.

If you are familiar with Troma films in general and know their kind of sense of humour you know they make pure B movies with bad dialogue and use lots of practical effects. In some cases they use a lot of gory violence that´s made to be a tribute to the worst B movies you can remember. In the case of this latest remake of The Toxic Avenger this is pretty much what you might expect. At least if you know the style of Troma films then this should be a film that might please you. There are some changes in this film compared to the 1984 original film of The Toxic Avenger and i actually think they did the right thing. Why try to copy the first film? Just do a completely different updated version, throw in completely different characters and try telling a story that´s not similar to the past. This updated version give us a complete different view of The Toxic Avenger than we are familiar with in the past. The original film is very goofy, almost like a terrible yet brilliant Jackie Chan rip off with high entertainment value for all the crazy characters and all the violence. This latest version do have crazy characters included as well and i have to say legendary actor Kevin Bacon as the evil Bob Gardinger is one of the best performances in this whole film. Kevin have always been able to take on all kinds of characters and i love seeing him play this insane individual. Actor Elijah Wood also give a solid performance as the odd character Fritz Garbinger who looks like some relative from The Addams Family. Even though Game Of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage is good as the main character Winston i got to say actress Luisa Guerreiro ( who you should watch in the Netflix TV series The Witcher ) as full costume Toxie is the highlight of this film. I personally enjoy the costume design of Toxie while still keeping a touch of the legendary look from 1984. Even if you hear Dinklage´s voice it is Luisa doing the physical performance as Toxie and the voice over matches well. Very violent scenes in several moments in this film and i love seeing Toxie ripping bodies apart. There are some funny moments as well where you feel that the Troma influences becomes very clear. Director Macon Blair ( who i really love in the 2013 independent drama thriller Blue Ruin, a must watch ) have not only managed to do a great remake of a B movie classic, but he also have given this legendary character a different approach that actually works. If you just want lots of blood, bad dialogue and just have a good time then what are you waiting for? Watch this Toxic Avenger remake and your pizza night at home will without a doubt be successfull.

Rating: DDD