Movie Review: The Toxic Avenger

There are certain movies that are never going to work for mainstream audiences, and long-running indie studio Troma is known for producing a lot of them. Mixing over-the-top violence with juvenile humor, they were never exactly setting out to win Academy Awards, but for those who could get behind their scrappy, twisted little productions, there was often something indefinably special to them. Writer and director Macon Blair tries to capture some of that magic in his remake of the studio’s best-known film, The Toxic Avenger, and despite being perhaps a little too polished, he mostly pulls it off.

Winston (Peter Dinklage) is a single father, doing his best to raise his stepson Wade (Jacob Tremblay) after the loss of Wade’s mother. He toils away as a janitor at a local factory while struggling to connect with his son, only to discover that he is also dying from a brain disease. When he reaches out to his boss, the slimy owner of the BTH corporation Bob Garbinger (Kevin Bacon feasting on the scenery), he is rudely dismissed and so decides to rob the necessary funds for his treatment. While doing so however, he crosses paths with whistleblower employee J.J. Doherty (Taylour Paige) just as Fritz Garbinger (Elijah Wood) and his goons attempt to chase her down, leading to him getting shot and then dumped into a pool of toxic waste that turns him into The Toxic Avenger.

Despite his now grotesque appearance, he becomes a bit of a local hero as he uses his newfound powers to fight crime. But what he really wants is to take down BTH, and along with J.J. he sets out on a mission of revenge in the hopes of exposing the evils Bob has inflicted on the residents of St. Roma’s Village.

This film was originally slated to come out years ago, but allegedly every studio found it “unreleasable”. I can’t really see why. It’s not a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination and while the violence is pretty extreme and the humor is pretty crude, it doesn’t feel any more so than many other recent films, and even some TV shows. This is first and foremost a comedy, and a very silly one at that, and given the lackluster performance that genre has experienced at the box office the last few years perhaps that was the problem, but given the likely low budget it’s hard to imagine that being that big of an issue.

Whatever the reason, it’s here now, and I’m glad for it. It may look more professionally made than prior Troma movies, but it’s still a uniquely bizarre film for 2025, packed with gross out gags, moments of ZAZ-style comedy, and even a little bit of heart. The entire cast knows what is expected of them given the material and they deliver it in spades, never missing an opportunity to deliberately oversell a line. Could it have been a little bit funnier and a little bit more disgusting? Sure. But it’s still a worthwhile watch for anyone with even a passing interest in the material. ★★★