You have to admire writer-director Mike Stoklasa and puppeteer/artist Rich Evans for all the creativity and time consuming effort put into Oranges: Revenge Of The Eggplant; it's just too bad this spoof of action movies, zombie flicks, and frat comedies staged with an all fruit and vegetable cast eventually runs out of steam. But still, any movie that starts with an elaborate action sequence between oranges and terrorist bananas can't be all the bad!

This follows Professor Sunkyst (an actual nine-year-old orange, all withered and brown) who after helping stop the baddies in the opening scenes takes a job as a teacher at a college. Soon however, in between teaching the students to believe in themselves and getting into all sorts of nonsensical situations, he has to take on the evil Eggplant who's out for revenge (and who wants to take over the World in the process) on him for an event in their past.

This is certainly one absurd movie and it's filled with plenty of off-the-cuff humour and produce items sports goofy cartoon faces, but despite a few highly enjoyable set pieces (you gotta love the killer mutant plant during the science fair scene and those awesome fruit zombies!) this eventually starts to feel a little bit overlong.

Cut out about half-an-hour and tighten up the story a little bit and you'd have one awesome time, as is you an enjoyable timewaster that's certainly one of the more eccentric films of 2004 - the fact there's nothing else out there like it instantly makes it recommended for fans of the off-beat.

Visit the Official Site for more information and to order. (Chris Hartley, 1/13/05)

Directed By: Mike Stoklasa.
Written By: Mike Stoklasa.

Starring (Voices): Rich Evans, Katherine Carpenter, Riley O'Malley, Jeff Dolniak.

Picture Ratio: Full Frame.

Picture Quality: Nothing really to complain about here as the quality is above average considering the lower budget of the film.

Extras: Not as much as I expected, but what's here isn't too bad as we get six deleted scenes (most of them understandably axed) and an entertaining and informative "behind-the-scenes" featurette.