Toxic Shock

The Toxic Avenger ambles his way into theatres some two years after the film was first shown at festivals. Strange that the movie had so much trouble finding a distributor given the presence of major names, relatively mainstream sensibilities (compared to the 80s original anyway) and the fact it's actually quite a bit of fun.

Events take place in a fictional city inside a cartoonish, ultra-capitalist, crime-ridden caricature of 80s America, with locations called things like "Depressing Outskirts" and "Ye Olde Shithead District". Peter Dinklage is down on his luck janitor Winston Gooze, a widower with a step son who attempts to break into the headquarters of the mega-pharmaceutical company he works for when he discovers his gold level insurance doesn't cover treatment for his brain condition. Things go south and he is transformed into The Toxic Avenger, a mutated super human who sets about righting some wrongs in his crime ridden city.

The film attempts to stick as close to the vibe of a Troma film as possible, while still being palatable to the extended audience people like Dinklage, Kevin Bacon and Elijah Wood can bring to the party. This means we get a tonne of ridiculous (and mostly amusing) jokes and references, married to a gory splatter fest that aims to stick to practical effects as much as possible. Despite the film's subtitle being "unrated" the nastier edges of the Troma's 80's output have been sanded off in accordance with modern sensibilities, there is no exploitative nudity or child murder on display here. The result of this update is a movie that plays kind of like a classic Universal monster flick by way of a garishly gory comic book.

In keeping with the practical effects tradition, the titular avenger is played by Luisa Guerreiro inside a fantastically gross bodysuit with Dinklage providing the voice. Together, they craft a likeable and sympathetic monster. Elijah Wood and Kevin Bacon have fun as a hunchbacked henchman and nefarious businessman, respectively, but the stand out antagonist is Julia Davis as Bacon's unhinged assistant. The prolific Jacob Tremblay notches up another lead kid role as Winston's stepson and is as dependably solid as ever.

Underneath all the humour and mayhem, there is a sense of real injustice about charlatan healthcare practices and the systems that deprive and riddle with debt those who have the temerity to get sick. Obviously, there are innumerable films that point to the evils of paid for healthcare, and it certainly isn't examined in any great detail here, but the sentiment is genuine. As evidenced by the fact the filmmakers spent $5 million paying off real life medical debt rather than marketing the film traditionally.

Writer/director Macon Blair has done a solid job of capturing the Troma spirit and while the humour may bemuse some, and the splatter put off others, The Toxic Avenger is a fun and spirited hundred odd minutes. It does take a while to get going though.

7 deadly mops out of 10

Comments

Trouble in Paradise

Thanks to Evil Dead and Spider-Man, Sam Raimi will forever be associated with horror and superhero movies, but he has actually dipped his toe in many genres, from Westerns to sports movies. Send Help appears to be his twisted take on a rom-com. A good looking guy and an also good looking but awkward woman are stuck getting to know each other in a tropical paradise in a classic romance setup. In a slight break from tradition, proceedings are garnished with buckets of blood and puke and served with a side of black slapstick and maiming. Said couple is Rachel McAdams as super competent, but socially inept business strategist Linda, and Dylan O'Brien as Bradley, Linda's douchebag boss who passes her over for promotion as soon as he inherits daddy's company. When the private jet they are travelling in goes down they find themselves the only survivors as they await rescue from a remote island. Similarly to 2022's Triangle of Sadness, the power dynamics are completely shifted ...

Gimme Shelter

The start of another year means it's time for the annual "Jason Statham is a retired killing machine trying to live a quiet life but being forced to start stacking obituaries" movie. The typically nondescript title of this year's offering is Shelter and Stath's former special forces badass is called Michael Mason. When the British government agency that he used to drop bodies for comes calling at his remote Scottish lighthouse he is forced to take action, something that is complicated by the presence of a young orphan girl named Jessie (Bodhi Rae Breathnach). While our protagonist and his reluctant charge tear across the countryside, Naomi Ackie (criminally underused here) and Bill Nighy (putting in just enough effort to get by) scheme against each other at Spy HQ. Jason Statham movies can essentially be judged on three criteria; Does he get to do cool action? Are the bad guys formidable enough? Is the plot and dialogue entertainingly cheesy rather than just e...

Blow My Whistle

Whistle is Corin Hardy's third movie, after his 2015 breakout The Hallow and 2018's Conjuring spin-off The Nun. This new horror flick sits halfway between the indie energy of his maiden effort and the box ticking boredom of his big studio follow-up, with self seriousness butting up against dumb fun. The set-up is most reminiscent of Final Destination, with added high school slasher vibes. Chrys (Dafne Keen) moves in with her cousin Rel's (Sky Yang) family following the death of her father. Within about ten minutes of attending her high school she becomes besotted with Sophie Nellisse's Ellie, ends up in detention after a confrontation with loudmouth basketball player Dean (Jhaleil Swaby) and finds an Aztec death whistle in her new locker. Naturally, the teens end up blowing the death whistle which causes them all to be stalked by their future deaths. This manifests as a ghostly apparition of your dead future self who causes you to suffer said death as soon as they to...

Stars and Their Cars

Crime 101 is named for the California freeway one of the characters commits all his robberies along. It also doubles as describing his MO, he is successful because he makes sure he gets the fundamentals right every time. It can also describe the film itself, which nails the basics of making a slick crime thriller better than just about any other movie has in quite some time. The professional thief is Mike Davis (Chris Hemsworth), a meticulous planner whose jobs never lead to anyone being hurt and are so well executed that nobody even has any idea they are all the work of one man. Nobody that is, except for Mark Ruffalo's Detective Lou Lubesnick, who is determined to catch the "101 Robber" even though his obsession is starting to lead to him being ostracised in the precinct. Both characters come into contact with high value insurance broker Sharon (Halle Berry) as Mike plans a big score and Lou joins the dots in an attempt to track him down. A potential fly in the ointmen...

Please Close This Book

The Strangers-Chapter 3 brings an end to one of the most puzzlingly pointless trilogies of all time. Shot back to back (although this instalment underwent some sizeable reshoots after the tepid reception to Chapter 1), the three entries encompass scarcely enough content to cover a single film and are devoid of scares or ideas. In fairness, this instalment seems like it almost has the genesis of something to say. Almost. If you were lucky enough to miss the previous instalments it won't take long to get you caught up. In Chapter 1, Maya (Madelaine Petsch) ran around in the woods a bit with her boyfriend before he was killed by some mask wearing locals of the backwater town they were visiting. In Chapter 2, she ran around in the woods on her own a bit before managing to kill one her face hiding pursuers. Here, we pick up straight after Chapter 2 and, after a brief interlude in a church, Maya is capture by lead "Stranger" Gregory. Meanwhile, Maya's sister Debbie and ...

More Money More Killing

How to Make a Killing is loosely based on 1949 British crime comedy Kind Hearts and Cornets (which is in turn an adaptation of 1907 novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal). In a world of remakes, reboots and adaptations, that is pretty interesting source material and could almost qualify as an original idea. Unfortunately, the imagination mostly stops there and the film isn't funny or insightful enough to rise above "it's fine" territory. Glenn Powell is Becket Redfellow, a suit salesman who grew up largely in the foster care system as his mother died while he was young. He is heir to the fortune of his mother's estranged family and, in the unlikely event all the other senior Redfellows should perish, he would be a billionaire. A chance encounter with his status obsessed childhood crush Julia (Margaret Qualley) and an unjust demotion at work give him the notion to speed up his inheritance a little. As he arranges "accidents" for his fellow R...

It Sure Does

Love Hurts is Ke Huy Quan's first ever lead role. After decades out the game and struggling to keep his insurance prior to his Oscar winning turn in "Everything Everywhere, All At Once", you can hardly blame him for taking the chance to front a movie. Unfortunately, in Jonathan Eusabio's directorial debut, he has landed in a misfire. Quan plays Marvin Gable, a cheery real estate agent living his best life as he crushes the sales game and keeps everyone in the office (except for his depressed assistant) happy with his home baking. Unbeknownst to his colleagues he used to be a gangland hitman for his mob boss brother "Knuckles" and when the mysterious Rose, who Marvin was supposed to have killed, remerges, big brother dispatches the goons to get some answers from him. Cue high jinks as Marvin battles henchmen kung fu style while trying to keep his current and past lives from colliding. It's a fun idea but nothing quite comes together in the execution. Th...

Hourglass Half Empty

The video game, Until Dawn is essentially an attempt to make the player feel like they are controlling a horror film. Wisely, this is not a direct adaptation of said game, as that would simply be a bland reflection of a reflection. Instead, writer Gary Dauberman and director David F.Sandberg flip the idea on its head, making a film that uses video game mechanics (the characters respawn after death, with a finite amount of lives) to tell its story. An interesting premise, and given both writer and director have done sterling work in the genre , hopes were high. Sadly, this is an underbaked effort that doesn't come any where near the best work either has done before. Clover's is on a road trip with friends (including her clearly still into her ex-boyfriend). She is looking for her missing sister while her companions are hoping to help her move on. They soon end up at an isolated house that is miraculously untouched by the raging storm they are driving through. Come nightfall, a ...

Super Money Brothers

The minute an Illumination Super Mario movie was announced you knew what was on the cards and this is is exactly that, a mostly by the numbers crowd pleaser with a focus on easy laughs and merchandising opportunities. The good news is it's about as good a version of that as we were ever going to get. The story begins with Mario and Luigi (Mario Mario and Luigi Mario to give them there full names) trying to boost their fledgling plumbing business by helping out with a massive flood in downtown Brooklyn. This leads to them being sucked into the Mushroom Kingdom, via a green pipe naturally. The film is full of trappings from the game, with power ups, karts and a Princess obsessed Bowser as the antagonist. It does flip things round with Luigi being the damsel (da man sel?) in distress while Peach is fearless leader, probably a necessary change for 2023 . Other Mario staples like Toad and Shy Guys make an appearance and there is a trip to visit "The King of the Kongs" (Ninten...

Lungbuster

With Iron Lung, YouTuber Markiplier, real name Mark Fischbach, becomes the latest content creator to dip his toe into the world of feature film production. His effort is not as accomplished as the work of the Philippou Brothers (creators of Talk to Me and Bring Her Back) but it's a lot more striking and original than last year's Shelby Oaks (directed by YouTube film critic Chris Stuckmann). The film is based on a relatively niche video game of the same name, which was made by solo developer David Szymanski (who helped with the film's screenplay) and is set inside a submarine exploring an ocean of blood. We follow exactly the same premise here as our protagonist, a convict named Simon, spends the entire runtime welded into a decrepit submersible on a distant moon trying to earn his freedom. What his superiors are specifically looking for is unclear but he is told the blood ocean holds resources vital to the survival of mankind, who has been pushed to the brink of extinctio...

Dan Says its Alright

Search This Blog