I didn't know what to expect out of Danny Glover in a sci fi thriller, but I love indie and independent films, so I gave it a try. Not bad! I was pleasantly surprised. The story line and character development takes a little while to unfold but as the title states, it is worth the wait. Is it a horror? Not really. More of a (largely) realistic drama involving scientists and the fight against the deadly disease. There are a few moments that are predictable like any movie, but it doesn't take away from the plot. Overall an enjoyable movie, and not to be confused with the old "Toxin" flick -- which is what it seems is happening on IMDb.
... View MoreFor some reason I always enjoy seeing Vinnie Jones. I don't know why. His movies and performance are getting worse every time, but I still watch them. And the movie has Danny Glover, of Lethal Weapon fame. How could this go wrong?Easy. Vinnie is a minor thug of no consequence, Glover acts worse than a wooden plank - not kidding here, there were planks that didn't make me cringe in this film - and the hero of the story is Taylor Handley, from Dawson Creek, playing a bad ass soldier coming from Afghanistan. Yet it goes further than this: the CGI is painfully bad, the dialog is pathetic, the direction is worse than non-existent, it's suicidal and the acting of everyone involved is abysmal. I mean, the best actor of them all by far was C.S. Lee, Vince Masuka from Dexter. That should tell you how bad the whole thing was.And yet, if this would have had an intriguing premise, brought something new to the table, added at least some element of tension, horror, drama or at least comedy, inadvertent or not, I would have been OK with its existence. Instead it is a completely worthless enterprise. More effort has been put into fake comments on IMDb than in any part of the film.Bottom line: avoid it like you would a toxin that is actually a virus that grows spores on the walls of buildings.
... View MoreThe bio-terror thriller is always ripe for a reboot, and TOXIN keeps alive the idea that scientists that work on creating and/or trying to control an unleashed virus are usually portrayed as at least somewhat psychotic. That approach is on view in this low budget but effective thriller, in which Danny Glover gives a good "I'm calm behind these eyes" performance as this film's resident psychotic researcher. Glover is well aided by Vinnie Jones and athletic Taylor Handle, as the heroic Dean who attempts and nearly succeeds in getting anti-serum to his girlfriend (the exceptional Margo Harshmann), who is slowly dying from exposure. Dudek gets good intensity from his leads and offers Fiona Hale a juicy part as Granny Sara. Director Dudek is, though, not well served by screenwriter Dudek. The teenage body count section dips its toe into parody territory, but it is played straight. And too many teenie characters are broadly played by lesser 2nd tier actors. Once Dean goes after Glover the movie gets more interesting, with a fairly good, logical ending for this type of anti-science movie. The science, incidentally, sounds pretty loose when it comes to the bio warfare aspect, although there are some mildly startling uses of CGI to portray 3-D computerisms and the bacterium itself.... those things give the movie some needed production value.
... View MoreThe guys that left the other poor reviews were being kind. If you are yet to watch this then don't, for the love of God please don't!But I'd imagine that you are just here to confirm that the film that you've just wasted an hour and a half of your life watching really is that bad and that other people thankfully agree with you and you're not going mad.Apparently I have write ten lines for my review to be considered valid by IMDb. Bugger, there really isn't anything in this film I want to write ten lines about, the other reviews have already captured pretty accurately just what a stinker this is.
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