The upcoming reboot of Troma's iconic schlockfest The Toxic Avenger has a near-perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes, with 20 reviews posted to the aggregator so far and 19 of those scoring a "fresh" rating. From filmmaker Macon Blair, The Toxic Avenger has drawn positive reviews from Collider, IndieWire, Variety, The Houston Chronicle, and more -- and its sole bad review so far is from Book & Film Globe which, frankly, doesn't sound like a venue that would be especially predisposed to falling in love with a remake of a Troma movie that was already pretty absurd the first time around.
The Toxic Avenger reboot has been in and out of development for years, with a number of filmmakers and stars attached, including Arnold Schwazenegger at one point, and High Fidelity's Steve Pink. In 2020, Game of Thrones standout Peter Dinklage scored the lead role, and development moved forward in earnest, making it clear that after ten years they were finally, really, going to bring Tromaville's biggest star to the mainstream.
The film, based on the long-running franchise created by legendary schlock film studio Troma, centers on a 98-pound nerd from New Jersey, who falls into a vat of toxic waste and is transformed into a good-natured and ultimately heroic monster. In addition to the film franchise and a short-lived animated series called Toxic Crusaders, the title character, affectionately known as "Toxie," has become the mascot for Troma over the years, used on merchandise and title cards.
The original rumor was that The Toxic Avenger would be a PG-13 movie with a tone not too dissimilar to the animated Toxic Crusaders cartoon from the '90s, but subsequent comments from cast and crew seem to be teasing a darker, more R-rated take.
The Toxic Avenger franchise is just one of a number of multi-film franchises at Troma, like Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. and The Class of Nuke 'Em High -- although outside of the indie film space, only Toxic Avenger has found a lot of mainstream success. It nevertheless dabbled a little bit in environmental themes, and the same kind of winking deconstruction of the superhero genre that made Deadpool a success years later
"It's not a remake. I just like guerrilla filmmaking," Dinklage told Empire. "Those movies - they just made them, no matter what. They just did it because they love doing it. Some of them are not the best, but some are so much fun. When you make movies too clean, it can distance the audience. They want to feel the dirt under their fingernails. I think those Troma films definitely dipped the audience in toxic waste."
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