A Tomato Ate My Sister

We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.

Killer tomatoes and Clark Kent.

ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES: ORGANIC INTELLIGENCE

In 1978, the creative team of John De Bello, Costa Dillon, and J. Stephen Peace brought the world the “musical comedy horror show” Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, an independent production that did well enough at the box office that it (eventually) launched a franchise. De Bello, Dillon, and Peace expounded on the concept of homicidal tomatoes with Return of the Killer Tomatoes (1988), Killer Tomatoes Strike Back (1991), and Killer Tomatoes Eat France (1992) – and in the midst of making those live-action sequels, they also managed to launch an Attack of the Killer Tomatoes animated TV series that lasted for two seasons. If you loved the idea of tomatoes turning into bloodthirsty balls of terror, you were being well-fed back in those glory days.

But then, the franchise went dormant. And the entertainment world has seemed lacking since 1992, hasn’t it? It has felt like there was a void that could never be filled. And that’s because we’ve had a distinct lack of goofy movies about deadly fruit. Or vegetables. Or whatever you prefer to call tomatoes. Now, that age of doldrums is finally over, as Peace and Dillo have joined forces with director David Ferino to finally, after more than thirty years, revive the Killer Tomatoes franchise with Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: Organic Intelligence!

This sequel is just as silly and ridiculous as its predecessors, although its continuity with the other sequels is a bit shaky. Organic Intelligence is primarily linked to the original movie, which it says was a documentary that ended up being released as a comedy as part of an attempt to cover up the facts of the Tomato War. The cartoon and other sequels are brushed off as “pitiful contrivances,” and yet John Astin is still around as Professor Mortimer Gangreen, the mad scientist he played in those “pitiful contrivances.” He’s even still animated! (Although, in the cartoon his character’s name was Dr. Putrid T. Gangreen.)

Whether the events of the other sequels took place or not, the fact remains: tomatoes are evil. They always have been. Tomatoes have been responsible for disasters throughout history, and the threat level is rising once again. Not only is Gangreen still out there, but VegIntel Organics, a company run by adolescent prodigy Dr. Kate Patelle (Samantha Bailey), has just launched the MyTomato, which is basically the new Siri, but this thing has no plug-ins and no batteries, it’s completely organic and even has living brain cells. That can’t be good.

While tomato attacks increase, new heroes Admiral Simon Grant (Daniel Roebuck) of Federal Vegetable Investigations, FVI Special Agent Marina Sifuentes (Myrna Velasco), VegIntel researcher Angela Kharsa (Noor Razooky), and diver Chad Rains (Zachary Roozen) try to get to the bottom of what’s going on – and get tomato experts Irene Savas (Vernee Watson), Greg Colburn (Tom Arnold, briefly), Sam Smith (Paul Bates), and Wilbur Finletter pulled into the situation along the way. Peace had previously played Finletter himself in this franchise, but for this film he passed the role over to Dan Bakkedahl… and, to be honest, I had trouble adjusting to seeing Bakkedahl in the role, even though he turned in a fine comedic performance.

I didn’t find the story of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: Organic Intelligence to be quite as interesting as some of the previous movies, nor did I find the movie to be as funny as some of the Killer Tomatoes movies that came before (some of which would be very hard to top), but that’s certainly not from a lack of effort on the parts of the cast or filmmakers. The jokes keep flying at a fast and furious pace, and all of the cast members do very well in their roles. We also get some fun appearances from Eric Roberts, Catherine Corcoran, and David Koechner. The movie can’t reach the heights of the franchise’s best moments, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a welcome addition to the franchise.

I had a good time watching Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: Organic Intelligence, and I’m really glad this series has made a comeback after so many years. It’s heartwarming to see a new addition make its way out into the world. It has been way too long since we had some killer tomato nonsense to enjoy. Fans of dopey comedies in general will probably have some fun with this one – and those who, like me, have had an appreciation for killer tomato stories for decades will have even more fun.

The Killer Tomatoes review originally appeared on ArrowintheHead.com

SMALLVILLE SEASON FOUR (2004 – 2005)

I have seen season 4 of the “teen Superman” show Smallville described as “the season of suck,” and unfortunately that’s not an assessment I can disagree with. I already thought season 3 was underwhelming, and things got even worse during this stretch of episodes.

As season 4 begins, super-powered teen Clark Kent (Tom Welling) is dealing with the aftermath of the previous season's revelation about his Kryptonian origins, but things get stranger when he returns to Smallville as the flying Kal-El, apparently determined to fulfill his questionable destiny. Martha Kent (Annette O'Toole) uses a mysterious form of Black Kryptonite to separate Clark from his Kryptonian persona, while a new girl named Lois Lane (Erica Durance) arrives in town investigating the apparent death of her cousin Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack). Chloe, of course, isn't actually dead, and Clark and Lois soon become mismatched partners in figuring out what happened to her. Meanwhile, Lana (Kristin Kreuk) returns from Paris with a new boyfriend, Jason Teague (Jensen Ackles), and a mysterious symbol on her back that connects her to Isobel Thoreaux, a 17th-century witch whose spirit eventually possesses Lana and becomes entangled in a hunt for three mysterious Kryptonian stones.

The stones become the season's major mythology, with Clark, Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum), Lana, Jason, and Jason's mother Genevieve Teague (Jane Seymour) all getting involved in the search for them. Along the way, Clark encounters the usual assortment of people whose lives have been affected by Kryptonite, including a super-fast thief named Bart Allen (Kyle Gallner as a young version of The Flash), a metal-morphing assassin, a beauty-enhancing experiment that goes horribly wrong, football players controlled by a love potion, a super-powered athlete, and a mysterious dog stolen from a LuthorCorp experiment who eventually becomes Clark's pet Shelby. Clark also has some strange encounters with his enemies: Lionel Luthor (John Glover) switches bodies with him, while a Kryptonite explosion splits Lex into good and evil personalities. The evil Lex immediately tries to eliminate Clark and Chloe and attempts to convince Clark to embrace his darker side.

As for the personal drama, we have Clark still struggling with his feelings for Lana while she tries to maintain her relationship with Jason, and the arrival of Lois gives Clark a new relationship that is less romantic and more argumentative. Chloe becomes increasingly suspicious of Clark's secret, while Clark briefly finds someone in Alicia Baker (Sarah Carter) who already knows the truth about his powers. Their relationship ends tragically, as you might expect. Lex continues to become more fascinated by the Kryptonian mythology and increasingly willing to cross moral lines in his search for the stones, while Genevieve and Jason grow more ruthless in their own search.

Eventually, all of these storylines converge to wrap up a season that feels like it’s all over the place. As a fan called “BkWurm1” wrote more than a decade ago, “This was the year that Chloe was dead and then she was not, Lionel was dying and then he was not, Clark could fly and then he could not, Lois Lane made me want to bore out my eyes and stab my ears but at first she did not, Jason was a nice normal all around good guy and then he was not, Clark and Lana had finally moved on for good and then they had not. The stones made sense and then they... no, actually they never made sense.” And that’s just some of the season’s many issues.

It took me a while to warm up to the first season of Smallville, but I was loving it by the end, and I liked the second season even more. But seasons 3 and 4 have been increasingly rough, to the point where I feel almost ready to just give up on the show. Given how lackluster the storytelling has become, it’s shocking to think that this show ended up lasting for ten seasons. I haven’t even gotten halfway through and it already feels like it has hit rock bottom! But I will continue on into season 5 to see if it gets any better, or if it finds a way to get worse.