CAPSULE MOVIE REVIEWS: 8-29-25
- Aug 30
- 21 min read
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My Film Critic pants are quite fetching; they are on, pressed, and ironed. I'm ready to review six new movies in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, August 29th, 2025.
Darren Aronofsky has made a career out of films that feel like endurance tests, searing, confrontational, artistic gut-punches that leave you exhausted, exhilarated, sometimes even wrecked.
Requiem for a Dream destroyed me (I loved it and have only seen it once, because I can't emotionally survive it again). Black Swan, The Wrestler, mother!, The Whale, his films are aggressive, loud, and dark, filled with artistry that elevates their intensity.
He's divisive as hell, with many calling him pretentious or shock-driven, but for me, Aronofsky is one of the boldest, most technically dazzling directors alive. He doesn't just make movies, he makes obstacle courses for your heart, spine, and soul.
Which makes his latest, Caught Stealing, a bit of an anomaly. It's not as experimental or self-consciously "artsy" as his past work. Instead, it's a straight-up crime thriller, an insane funhouse lark through late-'90s New York City.
And yet, because this is Aronofsky, it's still shot through with his trademark brutality, intensity, and chaos. Think of it as Aronofsky taking a victory lap through pulp crime territory, and nailing it.
Set in 1998, the film follows Hank Thompson (Austin Butler), a former baseball prospect turned Lower East Side bartender whose life took a nosedive after a drunk driving accident ruined his career and killed his best friend.
His nights are now spent closing the bar at 4:00 a.m., calling his mom about the San Francisco Giants, and hooking up with EMT Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz).
But everything goes to hell when his punk neighbor Russ (Matt Smith, in full Brit-madness mode) dumps a cat named Bud on him before skipping town. That cat turns out to be the key to a tangled web of debts and betrayals, and suddenly Hank finds himself hunted by Russian mobsters, Jewish gangsters, Puerto Rican thugs, and half the criminal underworld of New York.
By the time Detective Roman (Regina King) enters the picture, Hank has already been beaten to a pulp, hospitalized, and dragged into a nightmare he has no control over.
And yes, they even injure the cat. Bastards.
This isn't the metaphysical ambition of The Fountain or the endurance-test horror of mother!. This is Aronofsky cutting loose, riffing on Scorsese's After Hours (casting Griffin Dunne as a bar owner is no accident) and the overstuffed pulp crime flicks of the late '90s.
Imagine Pulp Fiction knockoffs filtered through Aronofsky's manic sensibility, but unlike Guy Ritchie's awful, empty exercises, here the chaos has weight, style, and teeth.
Matthew Libatique, Aronofsky's longtime cinematographer, drenches New York in a gritty, late-night texture, shooting digitally but layering on a film grain that makes the image feel tactile and grimy. The score by Rob Simonsen, recorded with the post-punk band Idles, slams like a steel pipe. It's loud, relentless, and perfectly in-your-face.
The violence is pure Aronofsky: ugly, overwhelming, and unforgettable. Within the first half-hour, Hank has a ruptured kidney surgically removed. Later, a baseball bat to the skull becomes both character revelation and moral collapse. The film is funny at times, even goofy, but when the brutality lands, it lands hard.
Austin Butler is extraordinary here, this is his true star-making performance. Sure, he proved himself in Elvis, Dune: Part Two, and The Bikeriders, but Caught Stealing is the movie where he fully carries the chaos on his shoulders.
He's sympathetic, sexy, terrified, and furious all at once. He grounds the madness, making Hank's desperation both tragic and riveting.
Kravitz is terrific as Yvonne, sexy, smart, and resourceful. Their chemistry is electric, and Aronofsky isn't afraid to make their intimacy genuinely erotic (refreshing in an era where Hollywood has forgotten sex exists).
Matt Smith steals scenes as the lunatic Brit neighbor whose cat triggers the mess. Vincent D'Onofrio and Liev Schreiber are terrifying and hilarious as Hebrew mobsters, simultaneously genial and psychotic.
And Carol Kane, speaking only Yiddish, pops in to add another surreal layer. The ensemble is stacked, and everyone seems to be having a blast.
The film doubles as a love letter to the underbelly of pre-Giuliani New York. The grime, the danger, the 4 a.m. bars in Alphabet City, Aronofsky amplifies it into a fever dream. The setting is crucial: this story could only work in the lawless, neon-soaked chaos of late-'90s Manhattan.
And as a Cubs fan, I'll admit I cackled at the San Francisco Giants references throughout, especially given what the Cubs pulled off against them in 1998. That's a delicious inside joke for Chicago fans.
Caught Stealing is Aronofsky at his most playful, yet still unmistakably Aronofsky: violent, chaotic, funny, horrifying, and exhausting. It's not as heavy or soul-crushing as Requiem or The Whale, but it doesn't need to be.
This is him flexing his muscles in crime-thriller mode, an all-night odyssey of mistaken identity, gangland violence, baseball metaphors, and one heroic cat.
Is it slight compared to his more ambitious work? Maybe. But it's also one of the most purely entertaining films he's ever made. And thanks to Austin Butler's brilliant lead performance, it's one of the best films of 2025. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Splitsville is the new dark romantic comedy from Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin, the duo behind the twisted little gem The Climb. Once again, Covino directs (and stars), Marvin co-writes and co-stars, and they dive headfirst into the messy world of relationships, jealousy, and male stupidity.
The story kicks off with Carey (Marvin) and his wife, Ashley (Adria Arjona), on a car trip that goes spectacularly wrong. After only a year of marriage, Ashley announces she's been unfaithful and wants a divorce, right after a shocking accident caused during an ill-fated attempt at highway intimacy.
Carey abandons her and winds up at the luxury beach house of his best friend, Paul (Covino), and Paul's wife, Julie (Dakota Johnson), who claim to have a perfect marriage because it's "open."
From there, chaos ensues. Carey and Julie hook up. Paul isn't nearly as cool with it as his "anything goes" philosophy suggests. Ashley doubles down on her exploration, filling their old apartment with a rotating cast of lovers.
The couples splinter, recombine, fight, reconcile, and tear themselves apart again. Along the way, we get elaborate physical comedy set pieces, long Steadicam tracking shots, and absurdist chapters framed around divorce-contract stipulations.
By the end, every possible iteration of who's with whom has been explored, and the movie has turned the very idea of the modern rom-com inside out.
Covino and Marvin's The Climb was already a sharp, nasty little portrait of male friendship and jealousy, and Splitsville pushes that even further. This isn't just a rom-com, it's a satire of the entire genre, a brutal riff on open marriages, and above all, a movie about how men can be insecure, petty, and flat-out idiotic.
The opening scene sets the tone perfectly: a couple singing along to Kenny Loggins' "Whenever I Call You Friend" in the car, shifting into oral sex on the highway, a fatal crash, exposed penises, and a divorce declaration, all within the first five minutes.
If you're not on board at that point, you won't survive the rest of the ride. But if you are? Strap in, because this thing is dark, twisted, and very funny.
Covino stages comedy with a mix of slapstick and sophistication. There's a fight scene between the two leads that feels like They Live crossed with Jackie Chan. It starts goofy, goes on forever, and ends up demolishing half of Paul's gorgeous beach house.
There are also inspired homages, such as a brilliant tracking shot clearly modeled after the Boogie Nights New Year's Eve sequence, complete with infidelity revelations and tonal darkness.
And then there's Nicholas Braun, hilarious as "Matt the Mentalist," delivering a birthday-party routine so biting it practically rips the roof off the film.
The camera work (by Adam Newport-Berra) is bold, stylish, and inventive. Long takes, clever setups, and visual gags, this is a comedy that looks fantastic, which is not something you can say often.
Dakota Johnson is, once again, sensational. She's become one of my favorite actresses working today because she brings intelligence, sly humor, and an effortless aloofness to every role. She's sexy, funny, sharp, and somehow always the smartest person in the room.
She is also one of the producers of this film, which means she's not only elevating the material with her performance but helping these offbeat, daring movies get made in the first place. She deserves enormous credit for that.
Adria Arjona is terrific too, taking what could have been an underwritten role and infusing it with spark and unpredictability.
And the Covino/Marvin duo is very funny together, leaning into male idiocy, jealousy, and insecurity with gleeful abandon. Their characters are ridiculous, yes, but painfully recognizable.
At its core, Splitsville is about jealousy and insecurity, which is the rot at the center of so many relationships. It skewers the absurdity of open marriages, not in a judgmental way, but by showing how fragile egos and petty vindictiveness make such arrangements unsustainable.
And more broadly, it's about how men, when threatened, will do the dumbest things imaginable.
It's also a satire of the rom-com itself. Every genre convention (the meet-cute, the big fight, the reconciliation) gets twisted into something darker, funnier, and more brutally honest.
Splitsville is dark, twisted, smart, and very funny. It's an original, confrontational comedy that dismantles both modern relationships and the romantic comedy formula in one fell swoop.
It's stylishly directed, beautifully shot, and anchored by terrific performances, especially Dakota Johnson, who continues to prove she's one of the most compelling actresses working today.
And here's the kicker: this came out the same week as The Roses, that disastrous remake of The War of the Roses. Where that film failed miserably to say anything about marriage, Splitsville succeeds.
It's corrosive, daring, and hilarious. Proof that movies about messy marriages can still be great, if you have the guts to do them right. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
The Roses is billed as a satirical black comedy, directed by Jay Roach (Austin Powers, Meet the Parents) and written by Tony McNamara (Poor Things).
It's a reimagining of Warren Adler's novel The War of the Roses, which, of course, was adapted brilliantly in 1989 into one of the greatest black comedies ever made. That film, directed by Danny DeVito, remains a classic: dark, brutal, hilarious, and devastating.
This 2025 version stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Theo Rose, a successful architect, and Olivia Colman as Ivy Rose, an ambitious chef. The film begins with them in therapy, their mutual contempt laid bare as their therapist gives up on saving the marriage.
Flashbacks transport us from their passionate early romance in London to their life in Mendocino, California, where they have two kids, friends, and a lavish lifestyle. But when Theo's architectural triumph collapses, literally, and Ivy's seafood restaurant "We've Got Crabs" takes off, the power dynamics shift. Resentments grow, insults sharpen, and the marriage becomes a war zone.
Supporting players include Andy Samberg and Kate McKinnon as their friends Barry and Amy, Allison Janney in a brief appearance as Ivy's shark divorce lawyer, and a slew of comic character actors (Zoë Chao, Jamie Demetriou, Ncuti Gatwa, Sunita Mani). On paper, it's a killer cast. On screen? Well…
Let me say this upfront: Danny DeVito's The War of the Roses (1989) is one of my all-time favorite black comedies. Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner give two of the greatest performances in the genre.
That movie is vicious, bleak, darkly funny, and brutally honest about how a marriage can implode. It's not just a comedy, it's an endurance test of cruelty and escalation, and I love it.
So when I heard that in 2025, in the endless cycle of remakes, reboots, and "reimaginings," Hollywood was going to take another stab at The War of the Roses, my heart sank. Why mess with perfection?
Then I saw the cast list: Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colman, Kate McKinnon, Andy Samberg, Allison Janney. An embarrassment of talent. Truly world-class actors, both dramatic and comedic.
But behind the camera? Jay Roach. And here's the problem: Jay Roach has no subtlety. His comedies (Austin Powers, Meet the Parents) are broad, obvious, and often lazy. He's not a filmmaker of nuance, and certainly not the kind of director you trust with dark, biting satire.
And unfortunately, my fears came true: The Roses is an absolute disaster.
The script by Tony McNamara should have had bite; this is the same writer who penned Poor Things and The Favourite, both laced with wicked humor. But under Jay Roach's direction, all the sharp edges are dulled, leaving only cheap vulgarity and tonal whiplash.
This isn't darkness rooted in character or truth; it's just people blurting out inappropriate, shocking dialogue for the sake of a laugh that never comes.
The dinner party scene is a perfect example. What should be a tense, escalating confrontation between Theo and Ivy collapses into random, over-the-top, vulgar banter from the side characters. It's not witty, it's not edgy, it's just clumsy. Swearing and crudeness in place of actual humor.
And the performances? It says everything that Kate McKinnon, who is one of the funniest people alive, isn't funny here. Andy Samberg, usually sharp and hilarious, is completely wasted, playing a "lawyer" so unconvincing it's laughable (though, again, not in a funny way).
Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch try, but they're stranded in a tonal mess. The supposed "witty banter" between them is neither witty nor biting; it's cliché, tired, and flat.
Even Allison Janney, who only has one scene, is reduced to a one-joke caricature: the evil divorce lawyer with a scary dog. That's it. One scene. One joke. Gone.
The movie is littered with half-baked side characters, all written to deliver quips or fill chairs around a dinner table. Nothing about the marriage feels authentic. The resentments, the jealousy, the imbalance of careers and power, all of it was done better (and darker, and funnier) in DeVito's film.
The Roses is one of the worst movies of 2025. A total waste of talent. Not a single laugh landed for me. It's not just a weak remake, it's a flat-out bad film on its own terms. Tonally incoherent, unfunny, and filled with clichés we've seen in a thousand bad marriage comedies.
If you love dark comedy, skip this mess and revisit Danny DeVito's 1989 The War of the Roses. That film is still a masterpiece of savage wit and escalating chaos. This one doesn't even deserve to be mentioned in the same breath. - ⭐️
The title A Little Prayer could not be more fitting. Angus MacLachlan's new film is quiet, unassuming, and small in scale; yet, beneath its modest surface lies a story of enormous emotional weight.
This is the kind of movie that sneaks up on you. It doesn't announce itself with showy stylistics or melodramatic flourishes. Instead, it gently, naturally unfolds until you realize you're watching something devastating and beautiful. By the end, it hits with the force of a revelation.
Set in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the film follows Bill (David Strathairn), a family man and Army veteran who runs a small sheet-metal business.
He lives with his wife, Venida (Celia Weston), and their adult son, David (Will Pullen), and daughter-in-law, Tammy (Jane Levy), who reside in the guest house on the property. On the surface, it appears to be a close-knit Southern family with strong values and a steady, quiet life.
But cracks soon appear. Bill begins to suspect that David is cheating on Tammy with the company secretary (Dascha Polanco). Bill adores Tammy, perhaps more than his own son, and when the affair becomes undeniable, he tries to intervene.
He wants to protect her, but in doing so, he must also face the uncomfortable truth about his son and his own role as father, husband, and patriarch.
The family dynamic becomes even more complicated when Patti (Anna Camp), Bill and Venida's troubled daughter, returns home with her child in tow. Patti is resentful, convinced that her parents prefer Tammy over their own children.
And she may be right. What follows is a deeply human story about love, betrayal, forgiveness, and the way families quietly wound and heal each other.
The film works because the performances are extraordinary across the board.
David Strathairn is absolutely magnificent. Bill could have been a cliché: the stern patriarch, the disappointed father, the moral compass. But in Strathairn's hands, he becomes one of the most deeply human characters of the year.
He's quiet when he needs to be quiet, he's stern when the moment demands it, and he radiates a lifetime of experience in every glance and silence. This is one of the best performances of his career, period.
Jane Levy is a revelation. I've been a fan of hers for years, whether it's her phenomenal work in horror (Don't Breathe, the Evil Dead remake) or her beautiful turn in Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist, where she demonstrated her ability to excel in comedy, drama, music, and heartbreak all at once.
But her work here is on another level. Tammy is sweet, guileless, and heartbreakingly human. Levy gives her a depth and dignity that makes you feel every ounce of her pain.
There's a scene in a medical clinic that is absolutely devastating, one of the most emotionally raw scenes I've seen this year.
And the final scene she shares with Strathairn is pure cinematic magic. Two actors at the top of their game, sitting together, quietly devastating the audience. I was in tears.
The supporting cast is equally strong. Celia Weston brings warmth and humor to Venida, particularly in a delightful detail about her doing colonial reenactments, a small touch that MacLachlan lets us discover naturally.
Anna Camp is excellent as Patti, a woman whose bad choices and resentments constantly bubble to the surface. Dascha Polanco brings nuance to Narcedalia, the woman caught up in David's affair, and the film wisely acknowledges how her perspective is different from David's.
What I love about A Little Prayer is its authenticity. MacLachlan doesn't spoon-feed the audience or over-explain. He lets the story breathe, allowing us to discover details about these characters the way we would in real life.
The Southern setting is beautifully realized, and the film never condescends to its world. This is middle-class Southern life presented with empathy, humor, and grace.
For example, every morning, a woman sings spirituals in the neighborhood. To some characters, it's a nuisance. To others, particularly Bill and Tammy, it's a blessing, something beautiful to wake up to. That detail becomes a perfect metaphor for the way each character views life: some see beauty, some see irritation, some see faith, and some see noise.
Thematically, the film is fascinating. It's a family story where the biological children are deeply flawed, David cheats, Patti makes disastrous choices, and yet the daughter-in-law, Tammy, is the person the parents truly love, admire, and want to protect.
That inversion gives the film a fresh perspective on family loyalty and what it means to be bound together not just by blood, but by love.
MacLachlan directs with restraint, never letting the story tip into melodrama. This could easily have become a soap opera about cheating and family resentments. Instead, it's quiet, nuanced, and naturalistic.
The camera observes rather than intrudes. The story unfolds gently, and the emotional punches hit harder because of that subtlety.
The final scene between Strathairn and Levy is one of the most moving I've seen all year. After everything that has happened —the betrayals, the heartbreak, the quiet devastations —the two sit together, and everything culminates in a moment of pure grace.
No melodrama, no overwrought speeches. Just two people sharing an honest, deeply human moment. It's breathtaking. It's why we go to the movies.
A Little Prayer isn't a big film. It doesn't reinvent the wheel. Stories like this, family dramas set in the South, have been told before. But what makes this special is the authenticity of the world, the subtlety of the storytelling, and the brilliance of the performances.
This is a small film, but also a powerful one. It's a story about family, faith, love, and the quiet ways people hurt and heal each other. I highly recommend it. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Alex Russell's Lurker is a hell of a debut. Known for producing and writing on acclaimed TV like The Bear and Beef, Russell makes his first feature as writer/director here, and he swings for the fences with a modern-day psychological thriller that is part character study, part social satire, and part creepy, claustrophobic nightmare.
It's a movie about obsession, about the dangerous allure of celebrity, about how our need for validation in the age of followers and likes can warp the mind. It's also a movie that will make your skin crawl.
The title is dead-on; it's about someone lurking on the edges of someone else's fame, desperate to be seen, desperate to belong, and willing to cross every line to get there.
Matthew (Théodore Pellerin) is a lonely retail worker living with his grandmother. He meets Oliver (Archie Madekwe), a rising pop star and L.A. transplant from England, when Oliver drops into the boutique where Matthew works.
Playing the part of the nonchalant fan, Matthew knows just what buttons to push; he switches the store music to a Nile Rodgers groove he knows Oliver likes, strikes the right balance between admiration and restraint, and gets himself invited backstage to Oliver's show.
From there, Matthew worms his way into Oliver's entourage: a tight, insular group of hangers-on that includes social media manager Noah (Daniel Zolghadri), studio engineer Bowen (Wale Onayemi), sardonic joker Swett (Zack Fox), and sharp, watchful Shai (Havana Rose Liu), who functions as Oliver's manager/girlfriend.
The group is quick to haze outsiders, but Matthew proves intuitive enough to pass their tests. Soon, he's hanging out at Oliver's Hollywood Hills rental every day, given menial chores but slowly ingratiating himself. When Oliver puts him in charge of filming behind-the-scenes footage for a documentary, Matthew is officially "in."
But he's never really accepted. He's the lowest on the totem pole, the butt of jokes, the guy everyone tolerates but no one trusts.
And as Matthew's obsession with Oliver grows, so does his jealousy, especially when others like Jamie (Sunny Suljic), Matthew's boutique coworker, start catching Oliver's attention. Matthew turns manipulative, dangerous, and eventually criminal, culminating in blackmail, betrayal, and a darkly cynical finale.
From the very first scenes, Lurker makes you feel uneasy. Russell shoots with handheld digital cameras that evoke feelings of invasion, shakiness, and deliberate claustrophobia.
The film puts you right in the middle of Oliver's inner circle, where the vibe is simultaneously intoxicating and toxic. You're drawn in the same way Matthew is, but you also feel like an intruder, always on the outside looking in.
The tension builds slowly but relentlessly. Long stretches of Matthew waiting around, lingering in Oliver's space, are excruciatingly uncomfortable to watch. His neediness, his subtle manipulations, and his escalating jealousy all create a mounting dread.
By the time he crosses into outright blackmail, using incriminating video footage he secretly shot, it's both inevitable and terrifying.
Russell clearly understands the psychology of celebrity culture in 2025. We live in a world where anyone with a phone can be a star. Anyone with a sufficient number of followers can claim to be an influencer.
Criticism, performance, and artistry, which once required skill or training, can now be manufactured through likes, posts, and algorithms.
Lurker skewers that world by showing how damaging it is, not just to the people who live in the spotlight, but to the desperate outsiders who orbit them, convinced that if they say the right thing or shoot the right video, they'll belong.
Lurker is in a long line of obsession thrillers, and you can feel the DNA of other films all over it. There's All About Eve, with its story of a hanger-on insinuating themselves into a star's life.
There's The King of Comedy, with its uncomfortable portrait of a delusional fan determined to attach himself to a famous figure. There's Play Misty for Me, The Fan, Single White Female, and The Talented Mr. Ripley. More recently, it echoes Ingrid Goes West, which explored social media obsession through a darkly comic lens.
What separates Lurker isn't necessarily originality; it doesn't break new ground thematically. But what it does bring is a thoroughly modern, technology-driven angle, where the act of lurking is amplified by phones, cameras, and 24-hour digital surveillance. And it's powered by performances that make it feel visceral and real.
Théodore Pellerin is outstanding as Matthew. He's awkward, creepy, and unsettling, but never one-dimensional. He radiates a sense of need, insecurity, and simmering menace. It's one of those performances where you can't look away, even as you squirm.
Archie Madekwe is equally strong as Oliver. He has the charisma and presence to be believable as a star on the rise, but he also plays the flakiness and casual cruelty of someone who lives surrounded by yes-men. He's magnetic and maddening in equal measure.
The supporting cast nails the entourage dynamic, Zack Fox and Wale Onayemi bring the hazing and sarcasm, Daniel Zolghadri plays the jealous gatekeeper perfectly, and Havana Rose Liu adds nuance as the one who sees through Matthew's act.
Lurker is not a comfortable watch. It's supposed to make you squirm. It's supposed to make you feel like you need a shower afterward. And it succeeds. Russell's tight, claustrophobic style, paired with Pellerin's chilling performance, creates a deeply effective psychological thriller.
Yes, it's derivative, borrowing from films like Ripley's Game, King of Comedy, Single White Female, and others. But it's executed with such intensity and such an understanding of today's influencer culture that it feels fresh. The ending, when it comes, is sinister, cynical, and leaves you rattled.
This isn't a perfect film; it doesn't reinvent the wheel. But it is a strong, unsettling debut from Alex Russell, with excellent performances and a pointed critique of our obsession-driven, surveillance-saturated culture.
Lurker will make you uncomfortable, it will make you think, and it will stay with you. I recommend it. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️
When you hear the name Troma, you know exactly what you're in for: gross, cheap, gleefully offensive, proudly stupid, and somehow, in the middle of all the slime and bad taste, completely unforgettable.
Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz created one of the strangest, most beloved independent studios in history. We're talking about the people who gave us Class of Nuke' Em High, Tromeo and Juliet, Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead, and Troma's War.
For decades, they've churned out low-budget trash masterpieces, films so crude and disgusting that they loop right back around to being oddly brilliant. But their crown jewel, their pop culture calling card, has always been The Toxic Avenger.
The 1984 original is a gonzo cult classic. A bullied nerd falls into toxic waste and emerges as a hideous mutant superhero who wields a mop like Thor wields his hammer. It's disgusting, hilarious, juvenile, and weirdly endearing.
It spawned sequels, toys, video games, and even a Saturday morning cartoon. So, the idea of remaking it? That's both insane and inevitable.
Now here we are with Macon Blair's 2025 reboot. Blair is an actor-turned-director who made a splash with Blue Ruin and Green Room (as an actor) and then impressed with his directorial debut, I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore. He's a smart, interesting filmmaker, which makes him an unusual but intriguing choice to take on Troma's most famous property.
And he's backed by Legendary Pictures, the same studio that makes Dune. That means actual money. That means a cast of real stars. And that's both the blessing and the curse of this movie.
Peter Dinklage stars as Winston Gooze, a widowed janitor working at the corrupt nutraceutical company BT Healthstyle. Winston is struggling with his stepson, Wade (Jacob Tremblay), and then receives a fatal diagnosis, brain cancer, which his insurance won't cover. In desperation, he goes to his slimy boss Bob Garbinger (Kevin Bacon, clearly having the time of his life), who cruelly dismisses him.
Winston snaps, tries to rob the company, and winds up being shoved by Bob's goons, the Killer Nutz, into a bubbling vat of toxic waste. Instead of dying, he mutates into the grotesque, mop-wielding superhero known as the Toxic Avenger.
From there, he teams up with J.J. (Taylour Paige), a vigilante gunning for Garbinger's empire, and starts cleaning up St. Roma's Village (a wink to Tromaville, of course) by decapitating punks, disemboweling gangsters, and taking down corrupt CEOs.
It's bloody. It's gross. It's funny. And yes, it's exactly what you'd expect from a movie called The Toxic Avenger.
Here's where things get tricky. Part of the charm of the original Toxic Avenger and Troma films in general was how dirt cheap they were. The bad acting, the terrible makeup, the splattery, practical effects, and the scrappy punk rock spirit - that was the identity.
Blair's film has actual production value, and that sheen doesn't always fit. There's too much CGI blood, too much polish, too much "real" filmmaking for something that should be proudly crude.
That said, once the movie finally kicks into gear (it takes way too long to get there), it becomes very entertaining. The gore is plentiful, the kills are creative, and Dinklage, of all people, manages to make Toxie a sympathetic, oddly moving character.
The performance breakdown:
Peter Dinklage: He's fantastic here. He gives Winston pathos, humor, and humanity, even under all the mutant makeup. You actually care about this guy, which is no small feat in a movie that features exploding heads and glowing toxic ooze.
Kevin Bacon: The MVP. His villain Bob Garbinger is a perfectly slimy corporate monster, the kind of bad guy you can't wait to see get his comeuppance. He chews every scene like he's starving, and it's glorious.
Elijah Wood: Spectacular. He plays Bob's creepy brother Fritz, and his appearance is an instant classic. He looks like Danny DeVito's Penguin crossed with Gollum, and his voice work is hilariously unsettling. It's bizarre, it's grotesque, it's great.
Jacob Tremblay and Taylour Paige provide heart and energy, grounding the film whenever it threatens to spiral out of control.
And let's not forget the townspeople of St. Roma's Village. Some of the funniest moments in the film are provided by background characters and off-screen voices making snarky commentary, akin to the chorus in a Greek tragedy, if the Greek tragedy were about entrails and mop buckets. Those voices reminded me of classic Troma humor at its best.
What surprised me is that Blair weaves in some genuinely relevant social commentary. Underneath the buckets of gore, this is a story about the broken American healthcare system, about class struggle, about how the rich profit off the suffering of the poor.
Garbinger's nutraceutical empire isn't subtle, but it's effective satire. There are also potshots at toxic masculinity, incel culture, and influencer stupidity. It's all very of-the-moment, but it works.
At the same time, Blair never forgets that this is supposed to be fun. There's a punk energy, a gleeful grossness, and a spirit of chaos that keeps the movie moving. At its best, it captures the same anarchic vibe as Troma's original, just filtered through a higher budget and some more Hollywood storytelling.
Here's the bottom line: The Toxic Avenger remake is fun. It's not perfect. It's too polished in places, it takes too long to get going, and there's too much CGI blood. But once it finds its rhythm, it's a gory, funny, gleefully disgusting good time.
Peter Dinklage is terrific. Kevin Bacon steals the show. Elijah Wood is insane and unforgettable. And there's enough entrail-ripping, mop-swinging, head-smashing madness to satisfy anyone looking for a midnight movie fix.
It's not as raw or anarchic as Kaufman's original (how could it be?), but as far as modern remakes go, this one works. See it with a crowd. See it at midnight. See it with people ready to cheer every decapitation. That's where The Toxic Avenger belongs.
It's a gooey, sloppy, bloody, surprisingly heartfelt blast. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️
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