Tank Girl (1995) 104m.
Most people who'd read the comics by Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett hated this live-action film version, although I think that says more about the quality of the comic books than the movie. The setting is familiar enough: a post-apocalyptic future, mostly desert, with rag-tag rebels fighting an evil overlord for water. TANK GIRL doesn't want to commit to being set in either America or Australia, so settles for both (or neither) which would make more sense if the rest of the story was treated in the same way, i.e. an excerpt from a larger scenario rather than a complete arc. It was undoubtedly even more annoying for readers of the comic who saw Tank Girl's 'history' being rewritten for the screen.
The film-makers may have made some bad decisions in TANK GIRL but they did get the casting right for the lead role. Even though much of the casual vulgarity of the original character was removed, Lori Petty still makes a spunky, perky Tank Girl. I don't think we need to see the processes responsible for her transformation into the heroine of the title, however, nor the introduction to her friend Jet Girl (less convincingly assumed by Naomi Watts). Since Petty's character remains consistent throughout the movie, it wouldn't have mattered if Tank and Jet smashed their way on to the screen from frame one. In fact, the whole story is just wrong for these two characters - they should have had more desert time, tank time and jet time instead of spending most of the movie indoors. The rebel band of genetically modified kangaroo men ('rippers') is also a mistake. Their scenes drag and they fare no better than animated action figures. And lastly, the movie's potential star attraction - namely, the tank - is badly wasted. This overblown variation of the gun-as-penis metaphor is perfect for the sexually aggressive Petty (the theme from SHAFT plays when she drapes herself all over the tank's barrel, sighing "I'm in love" ) but appears too late into the story. The tank, an effectively scrappy composite of Rube Goldberg punk, is relegated to night sequences which fail to show it off to its best advantage; similarly Jet Girl's stolen jet makes only one appearance in its newly-liberated form before it gets repainted back into its former military colors.
With its lead characters, props and source material, TANK GIRL could have been a blast. Director Rachel Talalay was forced to cut material, but I doubt this missing footage would have improved the film. You may find yourself wishing that the film-makers had decided to ditch the live action concept and extended TANK GIRL's two brilliantly animated sequences into a full feature instead. Why not? Petty's already got that cartoon-character voice down pat.
sburridge@hotmail.com
========== X-RAMR-ID: 28996 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 240302 X-RT-TitleID: 1059295 X-RT-AuthorID: 1305
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews