The Toxic Avenger | The Deight Night Review

The Toxic Avenger (2023, Macon Blair, Signature Entertainment)

Peter Dinklage returns to the superhero genre, after his brief stint as a magic giant in Avengers: Infinity War helping Thor rebuild his hammer, on to his first starring role on as a comic crusader. Here he fronts the reboot of the lesser known cult classic The Toxic Avenger which released originally in 1984 and was succeeded by three sequels. This reboot doesn't have the James Gunn attitude towards origin stories and acts very much as a reintroduction to Toxie. 

Winston Gooze (Peter Dinklage) is a mild mannered and shy janitor who works for a shady healthcare company run by Bob Garginger (Kevin Bacon), he barely gets by with his wages while looking after his step-son Wade (Jacob Tremblay), who he inherited from his now dead wife. One day, things take a turn for the worse for Winston as he receives a terminal diagnosis which can be reversed only with a treatment that he sadly doesn't have the money for. In his desperation to get money to save his life, Winston ends up in a tragic accident with some toxic waste and his reincarnated as The Toxic Avenger. Through his escapades he learns about the shady nature of his boss and, with the help of reporter/vigilante J.J Doherty (Taylour Paige), he seeks justice for his crimes. 

What's immediately distracting about Toxie when he's first shown on screen is that he bares almost no resemblance to Peter Dinklage, the actor that's supposedly playing him. This is because Toxie is in fact not played by Dinklage and is actually given life by Luisa Guerrerio. Dinklage does of course still provide the voice for the titular hero but this sometimes can be an extra distraction in itself. It's very clear that the voice has been dubbed over and doesn't always sync up with what the lips are saying. The lead actor stated that he didn't think he'd be able to take on the physical demands of the prosthetics and instead passed it on to an actor more capable in that area. It's sad that this was the case as it would have been more fun to see an actor like Dinklage, who's usually seen in serious roles, take on something so comedic. Nevertheless, Guerrerio's presence on the screen is the most fun of the cast and her Avenger is a lot of fun to watch.

The same goes for the rest of the cast who very much understand the film they're in. The Toxic Avenger certainly embraces its B-Movie routes and the cast ham it up as much as they can. Nobody in the film gives anywhere near their best performance but that's the point. This mostly works in the film's favour, adding to the humour of a lot of the scenes, but it can make more serious moments slightly boring. Often what happens is that a serious scene will happen with some silly things surrounding it, this often occurs with Peter Dinklage's more sombre moments where he talks about his terminal condition or his love for his step-son. It can feel like Dinklage isn't exactly comfortable in this genre, he clearly yearns for more dramatic parts and makes the most he can out of what is a very cheesy script that's hard to get good acting moments out of. 

The script has the same principles behind it as the acting, but doubles down on that fact and can sometimes act as a semi-satire of comic book films as we know them. As mentioned before, the film is a proper origin story, something we haven't actually seen in a while thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In so being, The Toxic Avenger uses the tired old tropes that make creators fear these types of stories and doesn't so much turn them on their head but point and laugh at them and show them for the cliches they are. The film then can often feel very fresh and entertaining but other times, as is the risk, it does indeed feel like a cliched filled drag through a story we've seen a hundred times before.  

What stops The Toxic Avenger from dragging too much is its action. These are by no means the type of fights audiences are used to seeing, like the tightly choreographed brawls of The Batman or the grand battles of Avengers: Endgame. No, the fights seen here embrace the film's clearly slim budget and jump right into slapstick ridiculousness. This produces some of the funniest action moments of the year but also some of the goriest. Jaws are torn off, arms are pulled from their sockets and bodies are crushed by mechanics, it's one step away from being a Final Destination entry at points. There’s even one kill that might in fact be the first of its kind to be seen on screen, this will be very obvious once viewed and alone makes The Toxic Avenger an unfrogettable cinematic experiences.

While the sometimes absurdist, sometimes just juvenile humour doesn’t always land and the B-Movie style often can’t sustain the same levels of entertainment as The Toxic Avenger’s more expensive brethren, it’s hard to deny the love that’s gone in to this very silly, very gory superhero caper. With DC and Marvel still dominating cinema lineups with more and more complex and riskier comic adaptations, The Toxic Avenger comes at a perfect time to remind audiences of what came before and manages to have a lot of (quite cheap) fun along the way. 

⭐⭐⭐

The Toxic Avenger releases in UK Cinemas on August 29th