Tank Girl (1995)

User Rating:

4.7/10   

Director:

Rachel Talalay

Writers (WGA):

Alan Martin (comic strip) and
Jamie Hewlett (comic strip) ...

Release Date:

31 March 1995 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Comedy | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

In 2033, justice rides a tank and wears lip gloss

Plot:

Based on the British cult comic-strip, our tank-riding anti-heroine fights a mega-corporation, which controls the world's water supply.

Plot Keywords:

Tank | Jet | Kangaroo | Part Animated | Based On Comic

Cast

Lori Petty	...	Tank Girl
Ice-T	...	T-Saint
Naomi Watts	...	Jet Girl
Don Harvey	...	Sgt. Small
Jeff Kober	...	Booga
Reg E. Cathey	...	Deetee
Scott Coffey	...	Donner
Malcolm McDowell	...	Kesslee
Stacy Linn Ramsower	...	Sam
Ann Cusack	...	Sub Girl
Brian Wimmer	...	Richard
Iggy Pop	...	Rat Face
Dawn Robinson	...	Model
Billy L. Sullivan	...	Max
James Hong	...	Che'tsai

MPAA:

Rated R for violence, language and sexuality.

Runtime:

104 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS

Certification:

Iceland:14 (original rating) | Iceland:16 (video rating) | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Germany:16 (w) | Ireland:15 | Netherlands:12 | Singapore:PG | Spain:13 | UK:15 | USA:R | Canada:14A

Filming Locations:

Arizona, USA

Company:

Trilogy Entertainment Group

Trivia:

At one point James Cameron considered tackling this project.

Goofs:

Continuity: About 31 minutes into the film, Rebecca/Tank Girl slides under a stall to talk to Jet Girl. In the close-ups her head is near Jet Girl's feet, but in the overhead shots her head is a few inches away from her feet.

Quotes:

Tank Girl: You gotta think about it like the first time you got laid. You gotta go: "Daddy, are you sure this is right?"

Movie Connections:

References The Elephant Man (1980)

Soundtrack:

Shove

Even comics characters need at least two dimensions

The main problem I had with this otherwise appealing movie is that Lori Petty's Tank Girl has exactly the same attitude toward virtually every incident in the movie... good, bad, otherwise. And while it's a really sharp and cool attitude, the movie might have soared if instead of merely being an attitude it had been a personality. Then, arising from this Tank Girl personality, a whole range of interesting emotions could have been emerged, adding variety and a chance for excitement to build instead of plateauing in the first few minutes. Because even in a romp of a pic, you still need to care about the characters. And it's a whole bunch easier to care about a person than it is to care about an attitude.

Still, I had good fun watching this movie. The "Feeling a little inadequate?" scene is a minor classic. And by chance I happened to watch this movie the same day I saw "Mulholland Dr." and I still have a very difficult time recognizing that Naomi Watts is the same person in both films. She's excellent in both, but so very different. Ice-T, Jeff Kober, and Reg E. Cathey do a surprisingly effective job of creating characters from underneath their Ripper make-up... they're so good that one of the best parts of Tank Girl is just watching and listening to them.

This isn't a movie to go into with high expectations. Read all the negative comments, take them to heart, and then watch the movie anyway. It will make Tank Girl a pleasant surprise.