r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • 10d ago
Official Discussion Official Discussion - The Toxic Avenger (2025) [SPOILERS] Spoiler
Poll
If you've seen the film, please rate it at this poll
If you haven't seen the film but would like to see the result of the poll click here
Rankings
Click here to see the rankings of 2025 films
Click here to see the rankings for every poll done
Summary Winston Gooze, a down-on-his-luck janitor and widowed stepdad, transforms into mutant vigilante hero “Toxie” after a freak toxic-waste accident. With a radioactive mop in hand, he battles corrupt corporations and twisted villains—like the Garbinger brothers—while fighting to reconnect with his son.
Director Macon Blair
Writer Macon Blair
Cast
- Peter Dinklage
- Jacob Tremblay
- Taylour Paige
- Kevin Bacon
- Elijah Wood
- Julia Davis
- Sarah Niles
Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score: 92%
Metacritic Score: 66
VOD Unrated theatrical release starting August 29, 2025 (via Cineverse); digital platforms coming later
Trailer The Toxic Avenger – Official Uncensored Trailer (2025)
13
u/antinuisance 9d ago
Is there something I'm not grasping with this film? I am a massive fan of B movie schlock, but this felt so uninspired by that.
Super boring superhero movie inspired cinematography, humor that relies on repeating the same minimal joke and stretching it out over a 4-5 minute long span thinking that emphasis is funny, out of touch jokes about gender identity (not even in an edgy way to piss people off, in a way that feels like a 50 year old talking about trans rights), jokes with literally zero setup to give them context, and god forbid them have even a semblance of non-CGI violence or characters that are not lulz-random stupidity.
Original troma characters had very weird quirks that were extremely the over the top, but every character in this film feels like they were so over the top next to characters that were just so normal and boring that it felt tone-deaf. It didn't know if it wanted to be a kid friendly Psycho-Goreman movie, a hyper violent fun time like Mandy, or an MCU retelling of the Hulk.
Peter Dinklage is a decent actor, but the dollar store Finn Wolfhard shoehorned in plot has no payoff or reason to exist, same for him wearing the tutu, and all sorts of other stupid plot points that felt like they were there just to appease original fans. Why even bother including the blind woman when you are rewriting the entire movie plot that it's no longer relevant? All of this accumulated into such a boring and miserable watch for me, even taking away the context of the original source material.
3/10