The Toxic Avenger 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

The Toxic Avenger 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Breathing new life into the first superhero from New Jersey, Macon Blair's 'The Toxic Avenger (2023)' arrives on 4K UHD disc in this new SteelBook courtesy of Cineverse. Based on the classic Troma character, the newer, bigger budget film stars Peter Dinklage ('Game of Thrones'), Kevin Bacon ('Tremors'), and Elijah Wood ('The Lord of the Rings'). The 4K disc boasts solid technical merits, and a light, but interesting assortment of on-disc extras are available for the film's fans. A slipcover and a Blu-ray disc are also included, but a Digital Code is not. For a discussion of the new SteelBook, please scroll down to the 'Special Features and Extras' section below.

The Toxic Avenger 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

For a review of the the film's 2060p HDR10 presentation, please follow this link.

The Toxic Avenger 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

To learn about the film's audio track, please follow this link.

The Toxic Avenger 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Toxic Avenger SteelBook 4K (2023) arrives with a glossy slipcover that features both an embossed Toxie, and an embossed title. Removing it, the glossy SteelBook with metallic green highlights is revealed. The main image is simple but effective. It's a close-up of the film's hero in all of his bubbling, mutated, radioactive glory, and as such, the cover is dominated by greens. A metallic red highlight sits off-center in his unnatural left eye. In a lighter green, the film's title is centered above Toxie. The back cover features a full-body shot of a kneeling Toxic Avenger, radioactive mop in hand, and ready for action. He kneels in front of a green and purple burst effect that adds drama and energy to the image. Copyright information is found in the bottom right corner. The SteelBook's spine is a simple black field with the film's title in it's unique green font in the center. Legendary's logo resides at the top, and Cineverse's is a the bottom.

Opening the SteelBook, the tabs on the left hold a slip advertising Screambox. On the right side, the 4K UHD disc and the Blu-ray disc are stagger- stacked, each on its own hub, with the 4K UHD disc on top. Removing all of the contents reveals two color images. On the left is Kevin Bacon's Bob Garbinger. He's seated and looks contemplative in his gold robe. On the right, we find the hunchbacked Fritz Garbinger, Bob's head of security, with his stringy thinning long hair and his deep set eyes. He looks both menacing and melancholy. It's a colorful package that appropriately highlight's the film's three biggest stars. The SteelBook's glossy finish will show fingerprints associated with normal handling, but somehow, for this film, that seems appropriate.

The Toxic Avenger 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

As Troma titan Tiffany Shepis enthusiastically points out in one of the extras, this is the Toxie our world needs. The character and the film are still cartoonish in their way, but to attempt to recapture the 1984 film's absurdity would have felt disingenuous and out of touch. The world has changed since Toxie was first unleashed, and the first superhero from New Jersey needed to change with it. Dinklage, both as Winston and vocally as The Toxic Avenger, crafts characters better suited to the times. The film, for all of it's seriousness and graphic (and occasionally CGI) gore and mayhem, never keeps comedy, satire, and social commentary far out of reach. Not replacing the original by any means, the updates and the cast provide a viable pathway to more toxic adventures. Providing the most interesting packaging of the film, Cineverse's handsome The Toxic Avenger SteelBook 4K (2023) comes highly recommended.