A new ‘Toxic Avenger’ makes too neat work of cine-garbage

Nostalgia for extreme tackiness is surely one of the funnier outcomes of a cult film’s success. (Does one sigh wistfully at such memories or smile through a grimace?)

- Review ROBERT ABELE

YANA BLAJEVA Legendary Pictures LUISA GUERREIRO plays the mutated body of Toxie in Macon Blair's new film.

The gleeful cine-garbage factory Troma is, at 50 years and counting, now a hallowed name in outsider movie circles, with much of its reputation stemming from an ’80s output that seemed appropriate for the Reagan era. That especially goes for its 1984 monster comedy “The Toxic Avenger,” about a head-smashing vigilante forged from green chemical sludge. It was antipollution if you wanted to be charitable, but really, it was anti-everything. Haste plus waste, made for very bad taste.

Now, of course, we all recycle trash in our daily lives. But does it work as a film principle? Troma aficionado Macon Blair, a key on-and-offscreen collaborator of Jeremy Saulnier (“Blue Ruin,” “Hold the Dark”) and a Sundance-winning writer-director in his own right (“I Don’t Feel At Home in This World Anymore”), has taken up the challenge with his own “The Toxic Avenger” (released Friday), starring Peter Dinklage as this version's mutant hero, Toxie, and maybe the worst thing one could say about it is that it’s well-made.