Year: 1995
Director: Rachel Talalay
Stars: Lori Petty, Naomi Watts, Ice-T
Mention comic book movies now, in the dwindling days of 2024, and you’ll most likely conjure to mind the glut of identikit, focus-grouped and fanbase-fearful studio output that guarantees a level of box office without, hopefully, pissing too many people off. Waxy, CG-stuffed movies that, frankly, take up space. It’s an industry within an industry, one that pays the bills for hundreds of thousands of people, but which rarely offers anything that approaches personality.
In the mid-’90s – before Sam Raimi’s megahit Spider-man movies literally changed the game – things were quite different. Comic book movies were openly weird, kooky, widely derided offerings. Misshapen, garish, openly vulgar. To this viewer these are, frankly, the far more interesting and enjoyable offerings that the subgenre has to offer; sometimes painful follies; sometimes hugely comforting riots of overreach and imagination. And often both at the same time. See Rachel Talalay’s riot-grrrl Dark Horse (in every respect) offering Tank Girl.
The movie leans into the riot-grrrl association from the opening credits – a superbly colourful affair that ties what follows directly to the source material – thanks to Devo’s propulsive 1980 new wave single ‘Girl U Want’. Lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh even sounds as though he’s rolling his ‘R’s through the chorus line. The images that back this, from Alan C. Martin and Jamie Hewlett’s comic strip, set-up the strong visual language of the protagonist we’re about to meet; somewhere between steampunk and ’70s punk.
Lori Petty inhabits Rebecca ‘Tank Girl’ Buck, making her a rambunctious, dweeby, sarcastic and goofy character to reckon with. Tomboyish and proudly immature. Tank Girl will crack wise and affect silly accents, rejecting sincerity and authority through humour.
Her attitude (and one might argue look, too) feel inspired in part by the Madonna of the ’80s. The titles feature a snippet of the comic book version of the character’s accentuated missile bra, an undeniable visual simile to Madge’s iconic conical (iconical?) cups. Petty is seen in this exaggerated item later on in the movie. Petty isn’t just channeling a post-apocalyptic variation on a popstar. The character also takes in various incarnations of Harley Quinn (Tank Girl also served time under the DC umbrella). But that’s not the end of the associations either. When Petty first appears to us as Rebecca, she’s like a live action Nausicaä from the Hayao Miyazaki manga and/or film adaptation, complete with gas-mask, goggles and astride some improbable creature (in this case a water buffalo). What Tank Girl tells us from the off through these mixed messages is that it’s a pop-cultural hodgepodge. A remix of identifiable reference points, some mainstream, some more diverse. But that it will be addressing us within a sphere of associations that make it post-modern.
It’s 2033 and the apocalypse has already happened. Not through nuclear war or a viral outbreak, but the happenstance of a meteor strike which has left Earth barren and parched for water. This event has given rise to the existence of mutants referred to as ‘Rippers’ (more on them later), and also a corporate mega-state, Water & Power, ran by suitably maniacal supervillain Kesslee (Malcolm McDowell on dependable form). In terms of tone, Tank Girl pre-empts another crude sci-fi ‘disaster’ soon to hit theatres; the Pamela Anderson vehicle (and fellow Dark Horse Comics adaptation) Barb Wire.
They seem motored on similarly constrained budgets, weaponising the sex appeal of their leads to make fools of the men-folk they encounter, and generally both films share a sort of MTV-inspired pre-millennial sense of excess and camp. As intimated elsewhere on The Lost Highway Hotel, I’m a genuine fan of Barb Wire, and Tank Girl is every bit as idiosyncratic and indulgently goofy a proposition. That’s a compliment. These movies feel so specific to their time and place, never to be repeated. Flunking at the box office almost cements their loser legitimacy. They’re the naughty children of their day. Tank Girl almost prefigures this connection. “What time is it?” Rebecca asks sarcastically when enslaved in a W&P factory, “I don’t wanna miss Baywatch.”
In the cast surrounding the irrepressible Petty we have several notable choices to enjoy. Chiefly there’s a young Naomi Watts, several years before her Mulholland Drive breakout, as queer-coded mechanic Jet Girl. “Quit picking on my girlfriend,” Rebecca says in their first encounter, kissing her on the lips to dissuade a sleazy W&P supervisor from his unwelcome advances. This being their first encounter can’t help but set up the ally-ship that follows as somewhat sexually ambiguous, offering up plentiful opportunities for fans to daydream. This, even as Rebecca discovers her ‘love’ – the super-phallic tank that will give her her moniker. Here, may I further another pop culture association from manga. This time Masamune Shirow’s playful Dominion: Tank Police, which also features a plucky young female character, Leona Ozaki, whose relationship to her tank is intensely personal, adoring, and wryly psychosexual.
Elsewhere, look! There’s Ice-T as ‘Ripper’ T-Saint, furthering an eclectic string of acting roles from around this period that put him in diverse contexts, everything from noirish thrillers like New Jack City to another slice of garish sci-fi, Johnny Mnemonic. Frequent genre TV character actor Jeff Kober (recognisable to fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The X-Files alike) is there beside him as, err, Booga. Even all that make-up can’t quite conceal his defined jawline. Who’s that gestapo surgeon? Why, it’s the workaholic James Hong! And isn’t that… Iggy Pop in the role of – checks notes – Rat Face?? Such colourful encounters in the movie’s peripheries are joys to rediscover on every re-watch.
Just as the soundtrack selections show a smart ear for the more interesting end of mid-’90s pop music (Portishead, Björk) so Tank Girl at large shows itself canny to acts of social commentary. A mid-film stop-off at waystation Liquid Silver manages to lampoon both mall culture and the self-seriousness of high fashion; arenas which heavily dictated to women how they should act and present themselves. Of course, Rebecca is in her element disobeying the rules and flaunting the dress code. She’s not buying what they’re selling. She quickly takes control, morphing the atrium – a sort of sci-fi spa – into a Las Vegas stage. Tank Girl also appeared the same year as the seminal Showgirls. It’s like some special kind of psychic synergy. Ann Magnuson is underused as Liquid Silver’s Madam. One senses she might have been capable of a Parker Posey-style act of theft. Petty doesn’t allow her the opportunity, though. Through all the mania and supporting players, she remains the star of the show.
Tank Girl is helmed valiantly by Rachel Talalay, who came up under the tutelage of Wes Craven on A Nightmare on Elm Street and even helmed that series’ unfortunate nadir, 1991’s Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare. Tank Girl represents an intrepid rebound from that critical disaster (although there were less notable projects in-between). And while the finished film didn’t fare much better with reviewers at the time, Talalay can and should be proud of the work displayed here to create something that pops visually, carries a tongue-in-cheek tone successfully and can be spoken of – genuinely – as emblematic of a time in comic book movie adaptations that now seems both smart and refreshingly unpretentious. That time with Craven afforded Talalay experience with both arch tonal choices and special make-up and visual effects, which Tank Girl leans upon heavily as it progresses.
Which brings us to the ‘Rippers’. The kangaroo mutants are the hardest potential point of abutment in accepting Tank Girl. Its tempting to revolt on Talalay’s movie once their motley crew are presented. The prosthetic jobs are impressively rendered but also wantonly ludicrous, daring the audience to jump ship. They position Tank Girl in a more unashamed place of foolishness, nearer to the dubious likes of Hell Comes to Frogtown or the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie. Like Rebecca herself, Talalay’s vision rejects hard any attempt to take it seriously. Everyone in those elaborate costumes earns their pay. There’s a sense in their conclave that they’re a mockery of the LA surfer/stoner scene, too, from their love of Kerouac’s ‘On The Road’ to Booga’s propensity for doofus idioms like “totally negatory”. Throw in those open plaid shirts and bandanas and they’re a ripe ol’ bunch, but charming enough to have us land on their side (though that dance number pushes tolerances pretty hard). By this point in the movie though you’ve gotta go all-in or just check out completely. Tank Girl accepts no half-measures.
It’s that zero-fucks-given bravura that ultimately makes so much of this work. There’s a sense from beginning to end that Tank Girl doesn’t really care at all what you think of it. It is absolutely 100% unapologetic. That every over-indulgence and wink to camera is worn as a badge of honour. Comic books and the niche stores that kept them were at one time counter-cultural nooks. Enclaves as hermetic as anarchic book shops or grotty live music venues. What they offered wasn’t supposed to be for everyone.
In Tank Girl‘s case, it’s supposed to be for the oddballs that fall upon it and love it for such bonkers self-assurance. Such rejection of banal societal norms. Who find society’s good taste boring, stifling, worth countering with a little rebellion.
I can’t help but count myself among them.
The Lost Highway Hotel 