Peter Dinklage Lets His Freak Flag Fly in ‘The Toxic Avenger’

I’ll try my best not to cause emotional damage to my fellow millennials by pointing out that it’s been over forty years since the 1984 original The Toxic Avenger haunted screens. Lloyd Kaufman’s bizarre and brazen anti-super-hero movie hit right in the heart of the ’80s, playing with subversion of hero and slasher convention in the few years before Batman, The Ninja Turtles, or Howard the Duck. Initially compared more to slasher predecessors, the movie became a hit in midnighter circles, eventually spawning a gaggle of sequels and now, a shiny remake. Taking more notes from the subversive superhero movies that came after and fewer from the slasher darlings before it, this newest The Toxic Avenger has all of the midnighter charm, even if it has less of the shock.

Peter Dinklage leads this one as Winston Gooze, a down-on-his-luck janitor struggling to raise his stepson, keep his job, and manage a potentially fatal diagnosis. After being shut down by the eccentric CEO of his employer (Kevin Bacon), Gooze goes beast mode, which lands him in a secret ooze that grants him superhuman abilities. Bent on revenge, wanting to protect his kid, and working with a streetwise, unlikely colleague to take down the evil wellness company that wronged him, the newly minted “Toxie” swings around his radioactive mop and into the hearts of the many.

Helmed by I Don’t Feel at Home in this World Anymore’s Macon Blair, The Toxic Avenger takes on the pastiche of late ’80s and early ’90s superhero and noir titles, looking often like Dick Tracy, a Grant Morrison Batman Comic, or even vintage Zack Snyder. Falling into the ooze immediately set off feelings of that era, and Blair was wise to tap into it for this throwback remake that seems made up of pieces of the movies that came out closer to the time of the sequels. There’s no lack of style in this blood-soaked grindhouse festival, but there are perhaps too many attempts at substance.

The Toxic Avenger is a highly stylized Troma party wrapped around an unfortunately convoluted and poorly structured plot. There are too many villains and would-be good guys fighting their own battles, and Toxie is made into a man on the run too quickly for him to ever become the hero. Too many characters have their hero moments for Toxie to ever really shine outside of some great mop-to-jaw kills and a large nod to the original’s fast-food beatdown. Those who gravitated toward the original’s shock value will be left now with piss and dick jokes instead of the irreverence of things like killing kids on bikes for no reason. The largest gap is in Gooze’s meekness, with him nowhere near pathetic enough from the outset to set up his journey to hero. He is always a nice guy who helps others, and we never see him struggle more than a dad in a ’90s comedy. His pink tutu attire is self-inflicted, robbing us of the poetry of him embracing it in his final form.

The newest The Toxic Avenger might have been rotting on the shelf after its 2023 festival circuit, but it’s now been microwaved and served lukewarm to audiences looking for a green-tinted midnight flick. Though it’s easy to note that it’s doing too much, this Dinklage-led oozefest is a feast for the eyes that will get some of the laughs it tries for. It’s a joy to watch everyone try to keep up with the zaniness of Kevin Bacon’s standout performance, but it would have been better to watch them succeed. The Toxic Avenger is a worthy installment into the Troma canon and will proverbially pay for itself if it inspires a new generation to go back and watch the rest of it.

The Toxic Avenger hits theaters August 29, 2025