Back when adaptations were becoming the rage, Tank Girl will be remembered as one of the more outright failures...well, remembered by those who recall it at all. Like the similar Barb Wire (1996), it bombed bigtime at the box-office. Unlike Barb Wire however, it has become a cult classic held in the same reverence (albeit different capacities) shown toward the neo-underground comic book upon which it was based. Although it fails to fully capture the go-radical nature of its source material, the film manages some of that spirit - it's unique, frenetic, and just plain juvenile.

As far as Post-Apocalyptic films go, Tank Girl is middle-range. Armed with a $25 million budget, the production design by Catherine Hardwicke (Brain Dead, 1990) is pure mid-90's veneer: studio sets, stripped down industrial aesthetic, and cut-price effects. Mega-Corporation Dystopia is a demanding sub-genre, and director Rachel Talalay at least manages to transcend 'bad' Albert Pyun (Cyborg, 1989; Knights, 1993) with a glitzy style and glimpses of mad vision. Her action scenes are standard, with sparky explosions, dodgy editing and run-of-the-mill angles, but it's all offset with general weirdness and the beginnings of the "girl power" vibe.

What really separates this movie from others of its calibre is the sheer campness. Humour plays off a serious backdrop of water-hording in a bleak futuristic wasteland. The central premise (as VO'd by a post-filming bored sounding Petty) takes global warming fears to the next level, with the Earth scorched dry and remaining H2O resources held by the evil 'Corporation' (i.e. Government). Tank Girl becomes entangled with them after they kill her hippy family and kidnap her friend, but even as she and her shy accomplice, Jet Girl (who pilots a Jet, for the record) join up with a (literally) underground band of mutant Marsupial rebels for the 'final conflict', it's all secondary to the touching journey of a girl finding her voice in a desolate world - through the long steel barrel of an armored Tank. The creature effects for the Marsupials by Stan Winston are unsurprisingly one nicely done aspect: old school pre-CGI costumes that look like the prototypes for Warriors of Virtue (1997). As one of them, Ice-T is mad cool, and this remains one of the more off-beat appearances from a rapper in film.

Talalay doesn't shy from cruising trippy town either, with random sequences of animation and series artist Jamie Hewlett's work thrown in. But the real doses of energy can be attributed to Lori Petty. Although she merely plays herself, it is clear that Lori Petty IS Tank Girl: a potty-mouthed zany drunkard who loves tanks and has sexual feelings toward a mutant kangaroo - she remains one of the more intriguing cyber-punk freedom fighters in world cinema. She almost carries the film on her cocky mugging alone, but ultimately this was make or break for her, and history will show that it was more the latter. Even co-star Naomi Watts (almost unrecognizable as Jet Girl) took 6 years afterward to get her real breakthrough.

What is obvious from the outset is that, given the source material, the 'talent' involved, the dystopian storyline, the madcap sub-plots and the all-round chaotic wild sewn in, Tank Girl had cult classic drenched into every fibre. It's a shame then that there is a restraint; it's outlandish, but never fully integrates the more X-rated elements or provocative antics of the comic book. It's all hip swagger, punk rock and attitude, and only ends up being one of those B-grade, teen-friendly mid-90's love letters, in the same vein as Escape From L.A. (1996).

A sum total of thoughts for Tank Girl is difficult. It's hard to call it inept when it's so obviously going for camp, and it's difficult to say it's a mess since linearness is for feebs. In the end, entertainment is a measure of how gleefully you approach masturbation jokes and surprise musical numbers, yes, musical numbers, such as a song and dance routine in an underground club to a rendition of "Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love)" and people in Marsupial costumes jamming like it's 2033. The soundtrack is a big positive here; any film that plays Bjork's "Army of Me" is deserving of a special star.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older