Ben O'Shea: It’s Really Difficult To Make A Movie This Bad And Have It Be This Entertaining

96FM’s resident movie reviewer Ben O’Shea dropped by to review The Toxic Avenger, calling it more of a reboot than a remake, with a fresh take that strays from the original storyline. Peter Dinklage takes on the lead role, while Kevin Bacon plays the villainous pharmaceutical boss, as the film follows a quest to right the town’s wrongs. Barra couldn’t help but ask the big question has Hollywood run out of ideas? The answer is yes but Ben loved the film anyway. Tune in to find out what he rated it. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Great per flick with Benohe that we.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Got to talk about the Toxic Avenger. Oh good lord, So,
oh look this is this is one of those movies
that falls into the category of so bad it's good.
And the original film back in nineteen eighty four. So
if you might remember going into a civic video maybe
in nineteen eighty seven, and you would have seen in
the one dollar ninety nine a week rentals in the VHS,

(00:25):
you would have seen the cover of The Toxic Avenger,
the original movie. You could not miss it. It had
this sort of weird disfigured looked like the guy from
the Goonies on the front cover, and he was ripped though,
and he was holding a mop, a flaming a flaming mop.
The American flag was waving in the background, and had
this sort of tidal treatment the Toxic Avenger that made

(00:45):
him look like a superhero, like a comic book superhero,
and he kind of was. It was meant to be
a bit of a sp better than a aqua man anyway, exactly.
And so the plot of the original film was this
scrawny nerd is bullied. He gets transformed into a mutant
by this toxic sludge and then basically avengers you know,

(01:06):
all of the wrongs done to him and sort of
teaches these bullies a lesson. And it was kind of
filled with gore, lots of blood splatter, but it was
a comedy, so his muppy could clean it up exactly.
And it was from this production house, Troma Entertainment. And
it's easy to dismiss everything that they did as just
kind of schlocky garbage, certainly B movie quality, But if

(01:29):
you think about some of the people who came out
of the Troma family, Kevin Costner, Samuel L. Jackson, JJ Abrams,
Oliver Stone, the guys who created South Park, they all
got their start in movies made by Troma. So it
has this kind of, you know, cult occult feeling around it.

(01:50):
So many many years later, they've come up with this
remake of The Toxic Avenger. They've kind of it's more
of a reboot really because they've kind of departed from
the original storyline, the basics the same with Peter Dinklige.
They've kept the mob as the Toxic Adventure. He plays
this guy Winston, who is a widower. He's raising his
step son, having some challenges being a dad and working

(02:14):
for this pharmaceutical company run by this sort of nefarious
CEO played by Kevin Bacon. So now they've all got
one degree of separation from Kevin Bacon, which is fantastic
for them. And so Winston is diagnosed with a terminal
brain disease. He's only got a few months left to live.
He goes to his boss and says, look, you know,
my company's health insurance is not covering it. Is there

(02:36):
anything you can do? You're a really rich guy. Kevin
Bacon just dismisses him, laughs it off, and so Winston,
as a last resort, decides to break into the company
and Robert rob the Vault gets the money. But in
the course of that Robbery is exposed to the toxic
waste that this pharmaceutical company produces, is transformed into toxy

(02:57):
the Avenger and then basically goes on a rampage to
right the wrongs in this town. Yes, but why why
is it happening? At least made a great point.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Has Hollywood run out of ideas like the Naked Gun
remake without Leslie Nielsen who wants to see it?

Speaker 2 (03:14):
This is the same thing? Oh no, Well, they ran
out of it ideas years ago. So there's very few
original story ideas in Hollywood at the moment. It's all
sequels and remakes and reboots or you know that's adapting
TV shows, or they're adapting the lives of musicians. Like
in terms of actual original storytelling, bugger all in Hollywood.

(03:35):
But I did watch the trailer.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
There is a fair bit of sort of ridiculous gore camp.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
It's so kitch, it's so camp and at one point,
so originally this hit film festivals in twenty twenty three
and it's kind of been hidden away since then, and
there were rumors that it was so gory that it
would never be released publicly. But it's not that bad. Honestly,
it's not that bad. It's a funny movie.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
It's how bad can it be? With when the yeah, yeah, yes, yes,
the does there's one there's one point where the Toxic
Avenger is sort of dealing with this gang of bad
guys and he says to one of them, show me
your lunch and then sticks his hand up the.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
So so that gives you an idea of what we're
dealing with here in terms of the level. But it's
actually really difficult to make a movie this bad and
and and actually have a beat really really entertaining, like
it's ertah. Yeah, to deliberately make a movie so bad
it's good. Most movies that are so bad are just
actually bad and espial skill. It takes a special skill.

(04:39):
And you question, you know, like you watch it and
you go, what did I just do with the last
one hundred minutes of my life? You don't deal it
with this film. You actually will genuinely enjoy it. So
how many something's really gone wrong with Mickey's mops in Fantasia?

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Are you giving it?

Speaker 2 (04:53):
You guys are going to be shocked to hear this,
But I'm going to give this three and a half?
Oh my actually actually really? But who's so fun? Who's
it for?

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Who's the movie for?

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Is it? Horror nerds? Are you a horror nerd?

Speaker 1 (05:05):
No?

Speaker 2 (05:05):
I hate horror movies like I think the way the
world is at the moment, which is a real life
horror show. It is the sort of mindless silliness that
you would go to the you'd go to the cinema,
you'd get your popcorn. Remind you of those movies that
Evil Dead from you know, from the nineteen eighties and
you just go, do you know what. You walk out
of it with a big smile on your face and go, jeez,
that was dumb, but I enjoyed it. Thank you, Ben,