| Reviews & Columns |
|
Reviews DVD TV on DVD Blu-ray 4K UHD International DVDs In Theaters Reviews by Studio Video Games Features Collector Series DVDs Easter Egg Database Interviews DVD Talk Radio Feature Articles Columns Anime Talk DVD Savant Horror DVDs The M.O.D. Squad Art House HD Talk Silent DVD
|
 DVD Talk Forum |
|
|
| Resources |
|
DVD Price Search Customer Service #'s RCE Info Links |
|
Columns
  
 
|
|
|
Killer Tomatoes Eat France
Fox // PG // September 6, 2005
List Price: $14.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
Most people don't have a second favorite Killer Tomatoes movie, but I do, and it's finally being released on DVD. Yes, friends, Fox is finally letting loose 
the fourth and final entry in the trilogy -- 1992's Killer Tomatoes Eat France.
Even though I've seen this movie four or five times now, I still have no idea how to condense it into a TV Guide-friendly five sentence synopsis. Something like...Family Ties' Marc Price is backpacking across France when a sandbag from a hot air balloon carrying escaped megalomaniacal scientist Professor Mortimer Gangreen (John Astin) smacks him in the head. A beautiful French girl...well, "beautiful" by American standards, anyway...named Marie (Angela Visser; post-Miss Universe, pre-rockin' at USA High) falls for the international movie star she's stumbled upon, and she offers to show Michael J. Fox (Price) the sights of Pah-ree. They accidentally stroll into the path of Gangreen's latest scheme for world domination -- fulfilling an ancient prophecy and having his assistant Igor (Steve Lundquist) crowned the king of France! A couple hundred thousand other things happen, plus the plot's really just an excuse to string together a bunch of jokes, and I guess that makes this whole paragraph a bust. Sorry.
There's no need for me to scribble down one of my trademarked twenty-seven paragraph reviews. If you've seen Return of the Killer Tomatoes, you know what to expect. Both movies have a nearly identical sense of humor, and even though ...Eat France isn't quite as consistently funny as part deux, if you like one, you'll probably dig the other. If you haven't seen Return, then...well, it's six bucks shipped at a bunch of online stores, so go ahead and buy it. Now. No, it's okay. I'll still be here when you're finished.
Got it? Wonderful.
I still have a bunch of space left to fill, so I guess I have to elaborate or something. Killer Tomatoes Eat France has the same goofy, completely random sense of humor as Return of the Killer Tomatoes, taking that ZAZ-esque approach and throwing as many gags at the screen as it can for an hour and a half. If a joke falls flat, don't fret -- just wait another twelve seconds for the next one. There are a bunch of callbacks to gags from Return..., particularly the way both movies self-deprecatingly break the fourth wall. A cameraman tumbles down stairs during a tracking shot, one character's grisly death is confirmed by pointing to a page in the script, Marc Price complains about his career options compared to his more successful Family Ties co-stars, and...yeah, I could keep going. A movie like this is kind of a hard sell in a review because if I mention that one scene is set in a house with a low ceiling where everyone's heads keep smashing into exposed beams or that banana peels drop from the ceiling to stop the goofy guy from Family Ties who's posing as Michael J. Fox from marching up 900 steps, it doesn't sound funny, but scout's honor. It is. A lot of the jokes flop and flounder, but enough of them hit to keep a dorky grin plastered across my face for 90 minutes straight.
Did I make quota and mention Return of the Killer Tomatoes seven times yet? No? Well, this should cover it: if you've picked up Anchor Bay's Return of the Killer Tomatoes DVD and are up for another helping, grab Killer Tomatoes Eat France. The movie's in-jokey enough that seeing Return... is required to get much of anything out of it, and if you like UHF or anything by Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers, you'll probably find Return... well worth the six bucks. Fox didn't pull out all the stops -- or any stops at all, really -- with this DVD, which content-wise is pretty much indistinguishable from the Laserdisc. Still worth fishing out of the bargain bin if you're a fan of the series.
Video: Full-frame, and before you trot over to petitiononline.com to gripe about it, that's the movie's original aspect
ratio. Although the photography's a lot slicker this time around, the DVD itself looks like a warmed-over Laserdisc. Not awful or anything, but crispness, clarity, and color saturation are all kinda lackluster.
Audio: The Dolby Digital stereo (192Kbps) is pretty blah too. Dialogue sounds okay...a little strained, maybe...and a lot of the sound effects don't really have any punch to 'em. The orchestral spin on the classic Killer Tomatoes theme that opens the movie is spectacular, though. There are also Spanish subtitles and a dubbed soundtrack, and English subs and closed captions are crammed in there too.
Supplements: No extras...unless you count plugs for other Fox DVDs, which you don't.
4x3 static menus. Twenty-eight chapter stops. No insert. Butchered cover art. I really liked the art on the VHS and Laserdisc releases, and it's kind of a drag that they ditched it in favor of something this low-rent.
Conclusion: You need to see Return of the Killer Tomatoes first to get the most of it, and being born in the late '70s/early '80s kinda helps too, but if you dug Return..., you'll probably like Killer Tomatoes Eat France too. Viva la...nah, too cliched. Recommended.
the fourth and final entry in the trilogy -- 1992's Killer Tomatoes Eat France. Even though I've seen this movie four or five times now, I still have no idea how to condense it into a TV Guide-friendly five sentence synopsis. Something like...Family Ties' Marc Price is backpacking across France when a sandbag from a hot air balloon carrying escaped megalomaniacal scientist Professor Mortimer Gangreen (John Astin) smacks him in the head. A beautiful French girl...well, "beautiful" by American standards, anyway...named Marie (Angela Visser; post-Miss Universe, pre-rockin' at USA High) falls for the international movie star she's stumbled upon, and she offers to show Michael J. Fox (Price) the sights of Pah-ree. They accidentally stroll into the path of Gangreen's latest scheme for world domination -- fulfilling an ancient prophecy and having his assistant Igor (Steve Lundquist) crowned the king of France! A couple hundred thousand other things happen, plus the plot's really just an excuse to string together a bunch of jokes, and I guess that makes this whole paragraph a bust. Sorry.
There's no need for me to scribble down one of my trademarked twenty-seven paragraph reviews. If you've seen Return of the Killer Tomatoes, you know what to expect. Both movies have a nearly identical sense of humor, and even though ...Eat France isn't quite as consistently funny as part deux, if you like one, you'll probably dig the other. If you haven't seen Return, then...well, it's six bucks shipped at a bunch of online stores, so go ahead and buy it. Now. No, it's okay. I'll still be here when you're finished.
Got it? Wonderful.
I still have a bunch of space left to fill, so I guess I have to elaborate or something. Killer Tomatoes Eat France has the same goofy, completely random sense of humor as Return of the Killer Tomatoes, taking that ZAZ-esque approach and throwing as many gags at the screen as it can for an hour and a half. If a joke falls flat, don't fret -- just wait another twelve seconds for the next one. There are a bunch of callbacks to gags from Return..., particularly the way both movies self-deprecatingly break the fourth wall. A cameraman tumbles down stairs during a tracking shot, one character's grisly death is confirmed by pointing to a page in the script, Marc Price complains about his career options compared to his more successful Family Ties co-stars, and...yeah, I could keep going. A movie like this is kind of a hard sell in a review because if I mention that one scene is set in a house with a low ceiling where everyone's heads keep smashing into exposed beams or that banana peels drop from the ceiling to stop the goofy guy from Family Ties who's posing as Michael J. Fox from marching up 900 steps, it doesn't sound funny, but scout's honor. It is. A lot of the jokes flop and flounder, but enough of them hit to keep a dorky grin plastered across my face for 90 minutes straight. Did I make quota and mention Return of the Killer Tomatoes seven times yet? No? Well, this should cover it: if you've picked up Anchor Bay's Return of the Killer Tomatoes DVD and are up for another helping, grab Killer Tomatoes Eat France. The movie's in-jokey enough that seeing Return... is required to get much of anything out of it, and if you like UHF or anything by Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers, you'll probably find Return... well worth the six bucks. Fox didn't pull out all the stops -- or any stops at all, really -- with this DVD, which content-wise is pretty much indistinguishable from the Laserdisc. Still worth fishing out of the bargain bin if you're a fan of the series.
Video: Full-frame, and before you trot over to petitiononline.com to gripe about it, that's the movie's original aspect
ratio. Although the photography's a lot slicker this time around, the DVD itself looks like a warmed-over Laserdisc. Not awful or anything, but crispness, clarity, and color saturation are all kinda lackluster. Audio: The Dolby Digital stereo (192Kbps) is pretty blah too. Dialogue sounds okay...a little strained, maybe...and a lot of the sound effects don't really have any punch to 'em. The orchestral spin on the classic Killer Tomatoes theme that opens the movie is spectacular, though. There are also Spanish subtitles and a dubbed soundtrack, and English subs and closed captions are crammed in there too.
Supplements: No extras...unless you count plugs for other Fox DVDs, which you don't.
4x3 static menus. Twenty-eight chapter stops. No insert. Butchered cover art. I really liked the art on the VHS and Laserdisc releases, and it's kind of a drag that they ditched it in favor of something this low-rent.
Conclusion: You need to see Return of the Killer Tomatoes first to get the most of it, and being born in the late '70s/early '80s kinda helps too, but if you dug Return..., you'll probably like Killer Tomatoes Eat France too. Viva la...nah, too cliched. Recommended.
|
| Popular Reviews |
| Sponsored Links |
|
|
| Sponsored Links |
|
|
| Release List | Reviews | Shop | Newsletter | Forum | DVD Giveaways | Blu-Ray | Advertise |
|
Copyright 2024 DVDTalk.com All Rights Reserved. Legal Info, Privacy Policy, Terms of Use,
Manage Preferences,
Your Privacy Choices 
| |||||||