The original Toxic Avenger is a cult classic. It's crude, violent and rough around the edges.. but it's also only 82 minutes long and has just enough story to string the sex and violence together.. but it works.
This new version though is a bit more polished and tries to be an actual film. It's more akin to a traditional superhero story with an origin, supporting characters and several layers of villains. A lot of time is spent developing the back story and relationship with the Toxic Avenger's adopted son the Villains are multi-tiered with plans within plans.. normally this level of depth wouldn't be bad but in a Toxic Avenger film it almost just gets in the way.
Dinkledge's makeup is pretty nice and Bacon and Wood try in their parts and ham it up pretty well but end of the day there isn't that much for them to work with. There's a bunch of side plots and henchmen.. for some reason the bad guys employ a slipknot-esque band that's also their brute squad.. some of the jokes land.. some don't.
Much was made about this being 'unreleasable' and this being the 'unrated' cut but if you've seen any comedy gore type movies recently none of this is shocking. Plus a good portion of it is CGI anyway and it doesn't look great. The best bits are easily in the red band trailer. I still wish there were more action/schlock sequences.. while this never quite devolves into boring/tedious territory it gets close.
Bottom line.. this should have been a over the top schlock fest with super hammy performances and tons of explotation levels of sex and violence. Sadly.. it rarely hits that and when it does it's pretty pedestrian. It's not the worst thing I've ever seen but it's fairly forgettable which is once again sad because I think the potential was here had they really commited to the crassness of the original instead of trying to presumably setup another superhero franchise.
