This sequel to "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" has actually very little to do with it. It's also a much better film. It does get a bit too juvenile for its own good toward the end, but it's entertaining (at times), with bits of surreal humor, jabs at moviemaking itself and decent acting. Half the time you'll be laughing, the other half you'll be looking at your watch. (**)

Return of the Killer Tomatoes! starts as it means to go on with a silly film-within-a-film gag about it being the one dollar movie of the week on a cheap cable TV station. Once the film begins proper it seems that Professor Gangreen (John Astin) is experimenting with splicing human & tomato genes & has created tomato people, or at least I think that's what's happening. One such tomato person is his good looking assistant Tara (Karen Mistal) who dislikes the way he treats her fellow tomatoes & runs away, she ends up at pizza delivery guy Chad Finletter's (Anthony Starke) shop because he is the only other person she knows. They become romantically involved but the sinister Professor Gangreen sends his tomato person servant Igor (Steve Lundquist) to find, capture & return her. Oh, a young looking George Clooney is here as Matt, Chad's best friend just to make the film even more bizarre.

Co-edited, co-starring, co-written & directed by John De Bello I thought Return of the Killer Tomatoes! was an OK comedy spoof that you simply can't take seriously. The script by De Bello, Stephen F. Andrich, Costa Dillon & J. Stephen Peace moves along at a fair pace & has plenty of cheap gags the best of which are centred around some tacky & blindingly obvious product placement, a trend that was becoming popular in films at the time this was made, the fact that tomatoes are now illegal & have to be smuggled into the country like drugs & the shortest car chase in cinema history. A lot of it is pretty much hit & miss, you'll either end up in stitches rolling around on the floor or you'll be sat there stoney faced. Personally I found a few scenes mildly amusing but I thought much of the comedy here was far to predictable, silly & juvenile to be effective. Also forget about any literal killer tomatoes because there aren't any as the film focuses on Tara & her adventures in the real world of which she had no knowledge of before, at heart it's a fish out of water tale with the hapless Chad bailing her out of trouble. At the end of the day I found it an acceptable way to pass the time, nothing more.

Director De Bello doesn't do much & as a whole Return of the Killer Tomatoes! is a rather bland & forgettable film throughout. There are flashbacks to the original Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! (1978) to save money while he goes for zany comedy rather than bother with unimportant things like a story.

Technically Return of the Killer Tomatoes! is OK at best but nothing spectacular. It's competent but nothing more. The acting isn't up to much & it really is strange to see such a young George Clooney pre-stardom in such a, well lets be kind & call it a unique piece of film-making.

Return of the Killer Tomatoes! is OK if you liked films such as Airplane! (1980), Top Secret! (1984), The Naked Gun (1988) & Loaded Weapon 1 (1993). Watchable if your in the right mood. Followed by a further two sequels, Killer Tomatoes Strike Back! (1990) & Killer Tomatoes Eat France! (1991) both of which were directed by De Bello who seems to enjoy making films about tomatoes a little too much, he must have a giant tomato fetish or something like that...

Mad scientist Professor Gangreen (a gloriously hammy John Astin) plans on conquering the world with his army of tomato men soldiers. It's up to nice guy pizza maker Chad Finletter (affable Anthony Starke) and his easygoing smoothie best friend Matt Stevens (an engaging performance by George Clooney in an early pre-stardom gig) to stop Gangreen before it's too late. Moreover, Chad falls in love with sweet'n'sexy, yet seriously kooky tomato lady Tara Boumdeay (an adorable portrayal by sultry brunette fox Karen Mistal). Director/co-writer John De Bello crams this flick with plenty of blithely silly and often sidesplitting jokes about such things as product placement, cheesy TV game shows, equally tacky late-night trashy movie marathon television programs, and lousy special effects (Gangreen's house is an obvious crummy matte painting), plus tosses in a corny romantic montage set to a hideously sappy song (watch out for the irritating mime!), a scene-stealing hairball mutant tomato named FT, a snake that growls like a dog, a nonsensical gratuitous fight scene complete with ninjas, and loads of priceless dippy dialogue (favorite line: "The girl of my dreams is a vegetable"). The cast have a field day with the screwball material: Starke and Clooney make for likable protagonists, Astin deliciously overacts with eye-rolling aplomb, Steve Lundquist pours on the smarm as Gangreen's slimy yuppie assistant Igor, J. Stephen Peace is a riot as Chad's gung-ho uncle Wilbur, and De Bello contributes a pleasingly smug turn as supremely obnoxious TV reporter Charles White. The plain cinematography by Stephen Kent Welch and Victor Lou gives this picture a properly chintzy look. The bouncy score by Rick Patterson and Neal Fox and the witty theme song both hit the groovy spot as well. Sure, this flick is incredibly dumb and ridiculous immaterial fluff, but the film's endearingly giddy'n'goofy sense of off-the-wall humor is impossible to either resist or dislike. An absolute gut-buster.