Hollywood struggles to come up with new ideas. They find something that makes a lot of money at the box office and they flood the market with similar stories until their audiences lose interest and move on to the next ‘big thing.’
So, it makes sense that Hollywood reboots previously popular movies, usually to the detriment of fans of the original.
So, I have to wonder why they are scraping the bottom of the barrel and rebooting The Toxic Avenger? The original was released by Troma Pictures, who specialize in making low-budget movies, with ridiculous plots, bad acting, and really cheesy special effects. Admittedly, the Toxic Avenger was probably their most popular IP, having spun off several sequels and an animated series. I admit I liked the first one, thought the others were best left forgotten, and have no real feelings about the animated series one way or the other.
But now I see that it is being rebooted. And it looks like it is getting a fairly sizable budget and some big name actors, most notably Peter Dinklage, who plays the titular character, and Kevin Bacon, who looks like he is playing the villain of the piece. So, they are putting a ton of time, money, and effort in to recreate the low-budget schlock feel of the original.
I’ve only seen the trailer but I cannot conceive that this will bode well. The original works because it is low-budget schlock, that is so over the top, you can’t help but love it, at least if your tastes run to that sort of thing. You don’t expect anything but mindless diversion going into it. You aren’t after deep, thought-provoking stories here, or general big budget action blokbuster thrills. You expect little and you get exactly that.
Just the trailer looks like they are already making a mess of things. The Toxic Avenger has a son in this one, so we are going to get a father-son bonding type of movie at the least. It’s got Peter Dinklage, who is a fine actor, and I’ve generally liked the things I’ve seen him in. Same for Kevin Bacon. And with a big budget, getting the campy gross effects of the original is going to feel awkward and over done. They look like they are trying too hard and it isn’t going to work.
Of course the reason of why it is being done again is because Hollywood likes to make money and they feel they will make money with this.
I don’t know. It could actually turn out to be good but I seriously doubt it. Reboots almost never work as well as the original. They either try to stick too close to the original source material, which was already better so why remake it, or they try to add to it and make it better, and fail.
Will I watch it? Probably. Will I enjoy it? I doubt it, but I’m willing to be pleasantly surprised. Definitely waiting until it hits streaming though.
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