A little late on this one, but it turns out that “The Toxic Avenger” has caught the reboot disease. Plans are to take the old, campy, sex-filled original and make it a family friendly pro-environment PG-13 movie. Well, who better to front the green movement than a deformed mop-wielding super hero from New Jersey? Your guess is as good as ours.
It’s not so weird to think of a family friendly Toxic Avenger — there was a failed cartoon series on Fox in 1991, and if you think back really hard, you might even remember seeing the Toxie action figure in the sea of Ninja Turtle and X-Men toys. Toning it down and making it a positive thing isn’t really unheard of, and the movie will probably follow suit like the cartoon did and take cues from “Captain Planet.”
For those unfamiliar with the source material, “The Toxic Avenger” was a low budget, 1984 horror-comedy made by purveyors of the earnestly ridiculous, Troma. In the film, a “stereotypical 98 lb nerd weakling” (though played as almost mentally disabled by Mitch Cohen) falls into a drum of toxic waste, which transforms his body and gives him near super human strength. After dealing with his transformation, the hero takes care of the various gangs and crime bosses in his town of Tromaville. Though this writer has only seen the first movie in the trilogy of films, I can attest that its hilarious and enjoyable piece of work, and it might be interesting to see what they could come up with for a family friendly movie. With legions of super hero movies still being made, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to see Toxie take the box office for a weekend or two. And with Akiva Goldsman (“I Am Legend,” “Mr. & Mrs. Smith”) on board as one of the producers, it might just happen. — Christopher Bell