Tag: Kevin Bacon

Cinema Dispatch: The Toxic Avenger

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

The Toxic Avenger and all the images you see in this review are owned by Cineverse and Troma Entertainment

Directed by Macon Blair

I’m not always sure what to make of Troma. Some of their movies have been genuinely artistic efforts with an iconoclastic edge, but then others are cheap garbage with retrograde ideas of humor and wit. It was, and presumably still is, a great breeding ground for up-and-coming talent, and they’ve stuck around long enough for a mythology to be built around them that can justify a big budgeted goofy remake of their most iconic film. Will this attempt at modernizing low-rent Gen-X trash appeal to the TikTok generation, or is it another failed attempt to get the youngsters to appreciate our nostalgic garbage? Let’s find out!!

Life in Tromaville is not for the faint of heart; especially given how crappy the health insurance is. No one knows this more than Winston Gooze (Peter Dinklage) who works a janitor for the terrifying chemical conglomerate that runs the town with an iron fist. There are those in town that oppose the company, namely the whistleblower JJ Doherty (Taylour Paige) who is trying to get the word out about their evil deeds, but Winston isn’t one of those people as he has a stepson (Jacob Tremblay) to take care of and can’t stick his neck out lest he lose what little he still has. Still, circumstances push him to take desperate actions to try and salvage his meager little life, and he’s shot dead before being dumped in a pit of goo for his troubles. Said goo, however, turns out to be the kind that grants superpowers and mutates him into a hideous monster with super strength, super healing, and a radioactive mop to fight bad guys with. The town begins to celebrate this new hero of justice, but he still has a son to look after, and his exploits catch the attention of his former employer, who sees dollar signs in his unique genetic makeup that has given him such a mighty mutation. Can Winston be both a fighter for justice and a responsible father, or are the pressures of living two lives more than even a super-heroic mutated monstrosity can handle? Can JJ bring down this evil corporation with the secrets she’s working to reveal, or are they too big to fail, especially if they get their hands on Winston’s DNA? Seriously, how did they manage to get Peter Dinklage in this? I doubt Troma has Nick Cage money, let alone Dinklage bucks!

“Wait, TOXIC Avenger? This isn’t the next Marvel movie? NOOOOOO!!”
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Cinema Dispatch: Flatliners

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Flatliners and all the images you see in this review are owned by Sony Pictures

Directed by Niels Arden Oplev

There are several movies a year that for whatever reason has trailers that will not stop playing in front of EVERYTHING I go to see.  I remember Our Brand is Crisis being one of them, The Fate of the Furious played pretty constantly, even Snatched was one that was hard to avoid!  This movie is certainly the latest to have that problem as I swear it was in front of every movie I’ve seen for the past three months and I’m finally happy for it to be released for no other reason than to stop seeing that trailer.  I’d never seen the original film until very recently, and while the premise itself seems strong enough to support at least too movies, the trailers didn’t fill me with much hope; not just because they played them ALL THE TIME, but because I couldn’t really wrap my head around what exactly it was that they were being haunted by.  I mean… I get it NOW since I watched the original, but with lines like “I did not know that the side effects would show up and start hunting us down”… yeah, it just felt like I was in for an uphill battle.  Still, remakes are a great opportunity to try something new (*cough* IT *cough*), so maybe there’s a chance that this will turn out just fine!  Will this manage to be just as good if not better than the original, or was this film… dead on arrival!?

…

Sorry.  Let’s uh… let’s find out.

The titular Flatliners of the film are a group of medical students who doing some messed up experiments in the basement in the hope of finding out the secrets of the afterlife.  The procedure which was concocted by Dr Courtney Holmes (Ellen Page) involves stopping someone’s heart (i.e. a flatline on an EKG machine) and letting them stay dead for a few minutes before reviving them.  Initially with the uncertain help of Sophia and Jamie (Kiersey Clemons and James Norton) the group eventually grows to include Marlo and Ray (Nina Dobrev and Diego Luna) and most of them end up doing it themselves as well.  At first it seems awesome as coming back from the dead apparently makes your brain SUPER strong, but eventually the SIDE EFFECTS start to kick in which complicates things for them.  They start to see things that aren’t really there (OR ARE THEY!?) and it eventually becomes nearly impossible to separate fantasy from reality.  Will the Flatliners find a way to stop whatever it is that’s haunting them?  Is there something in their past that is the key to doing so?  Seriously, why are they making it THIS easy for everyone to do the “dead on arrival” joke!?

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