Killer Tomatoes Eat France! (1992) review

14. Killer Tomatoes Eat France! (1992)

Directed by: John De Bello

Produced by: John De Bello, J. Stephen Peace

Screenplay by: John De Bello, Constantine Dillon, J. Stephen Peace

Starring: John Astin, Steve Lundquist, Marc Price, Angela Visser

Well, you can technically say they alluded to this in a previous entry, even if it was just a one-off bit of dialogue. “Killer Tomatoes Eat France!” is the final entry in the “Killer Tomatoes” film series, and with the TV show getting cancelled the previous year, that makes it the last installment of the “Killer Tomatoes” franchise, period. And in all honesty, I think it’s for the best that they stopped here, because this is as cheap and basic as it gets without feeling at all focused or even that much fun. The action is more cartoonish than ever, the characters are all blatant stereotypes, and the dialogue is nothing but in-jokes and puns. Normally, I wouldn’t mind much, as that’s sort of the identity of these movies—it takes real thought to create something as stupid as a “Phantomato of the Opera”—but the plot is so dull yet really complicated, with only smatterings of decent humor.

It opens with Professor Gangreen (John Astin) escaping from prison and setting up a base with his assistant Igor (Steve Lundquist) outside Paris, still armed with his killer tomato army, and trying to stage a second French revolution as told by an old prophecy written by Nicodemus, in which the king of France will return to claim the throne. Apparently, Igor bears a resemblance to Louis XVII—ignore the fact that the real Louis XVII died at the age of 10—so Gangreen plans to have Igor impersonate Louis to gain the throne, all the while hoping to track down his former minion Fuzzy Tomato, who carries the mutant gene necessary to create a new much more lethal kind of tomato. Meanwhile, a young struggling actor named Michael (Marc Price) is backpacking through France, where he meets and falls in love with beautiful French girl Marie (Angela Visser). They get caught up in Gangreen’s scheme, as his sabotaging of FT’s public goodwill results in all-out war with the tomatoes and humans.

Right off the bat, the immediate difference between this movie and the others is that the tomatoes now speak clear English—or at least, low gibbering English—in addition to having goofy-looking faces and designs. In the case of Gangreen’s tomatoes, they’re modeled after ones from the show; at least their names are, I don’t know if their designs or personalities are, as I’ve never watched it. I find this new development quite boring, as part of the original appeal was the absurdity of seeing normal farm-grown vegetables (or fruits, depending on who you ask) inexplicably killing people; in trying to make them livelier, they’re ironically taking away their established identity. So the comedy isn’t as much spent on them as it is on the cardboard cutout “Frenchiness” of everything; the opening credits have a funny enough tribute to “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” in which they make it very clear that this is supposed to be stupid as hell and not the least bit true to culture. Some of the scenery looks like obvious green screen, and they shamelessly lampoon the stereotype of how horny and flighty these people are.

The characters are pretty average; John Astin and Steve Lundquist are still playing up the classic mad scientist and henchman roles—I like that their evil castle also functions as a museum and gift shop with tours—while Michael and Marie are just kind of bland. The idea of him pretending he’s Michael J. Fox has funny possibilities, but it doesn’t really go anywhere interesting; also, if Marie is such a lover of American movies—count how many times they quote other movies just because—wouldn’t she recognize he isn’t who he says he is? There isn’t much purpose to their scenes; there’s a running bit about her being considered ugly by French standards…Angela Visser was a former Miss Universe, so that’s the whole point of that joke. It’s also suggested that Michael and FT know each other, which is what gets them all found by Gangreen, and he somehow thinks Marie betrayed him. That’s stupid, although I do kind of like that it results in him joining the war solely to get killed in comic despondence, but every earnest attempt fails; he literally runs around in a minefield, but just can’t get himself blown up. Don’t you hate when that happens?

But this is just a weird, bland, drawn-out story; why is so much time spent on prophecies and kings and queens, when all we want is killer tomato antics? Much like with the last film, I really don’t have much to say about this one; I think it mostly comes down to whether or not you’ll find these gags funny. The fourth-wall breaking—there’s one scene where Michael escapes a trap by literally leaving the movie—over-the-top performances, playful editing, and ridiculous concepts. I think “Killer Tomatoes Eat France!” is a little fun for a little while, but when the novelty wears off, it never really gets it back, save for when that amazing song comes back again. Looking back, I would still recommend the first two movies, but the two direct-to-video sequels seem to have fallen into obscurity; they aren’t even available for conventional streaming. If you just want to watch something dumb and silly to make fun of, try it out, but don’t expect much.

My rating: 4.5/10