THE TOXIC AVENGER
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1987 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: This is a feeble parody on super-hero comics that seems to have a following purely because it knocks New Jersey. It has crude production values, weak humor, and an inexplicable following.
Generally I am not all that fond of parodies. A film gets no points just for being a parody, no matter what it is satirizing. A parody should be funny on its own, even if the viewer has never seen the material being parodied. One parody that does work is John Landis's first film, a satire on TROG called SCHLOCK. The gags in SCHLOCK are funny even if you have never seen TROG. One parody that does not make it for this very reason is THE TOXIC AVENGER.
Melvin Furd (a name borrowed from MAD magazine satires of the 1950s) is a 98-pound weakling working as a mop-boy at a health club in Tromaville, New Jersey, the self-styled "Toxic Capital of the World." At the club everyone is good-looking and is a creep in one way or another, and the favorite sport is tormenting Melvin. One such prank goes awry and lands Melvin in a vat of toxic waste which puts Melvin through some changes. He becomes incredibly strong like Arnold Schwarzenegger but at the same time he is made deformed and ugly like, well, Arnold Schwarzenegger. He then proceeds to set the world, or at least Tromaville, right.
The problem is that most of the jokes in THE TOXIC AVENGER are feeble and predictable. The jokes are on the level of the health instructor telling his exercise class to do just what he does, and then someone drops a snake down his back. You've seen this gag about thirty times before. The film is crudely made with the words often not synchronized with the lips.
THE TOXIC AVENGER is a funny film for anyone who can laugh for an hour and a half at the same joke premise with little assistance from the rest of an amateurish script. Yes, we all like to knock New Joisey, and none more than we New Joisey residents, but THE TOXIC AVENGER doesn't do it particularly creatively. Rate it a -1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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mtgzz!leeper@rutgers.rutgers.edu
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