Tank Girl

reviewed by Adam Charlesworth

Anyone who did not see this film should be deeply ashamed. This was simply the best comic/film adaptation I have ever seen. It made Batman look sick and Superman dull. Tank Girl explodes with laughs, frivolous cartoon action and ridiculous situations. It also rocks and has a wonderful female slant to it that is seldom seen in male dominated Hollywood. Jet Girl and Tank Girl find themselves allied with the rippers, a mutated race of kangaroos against the evil corporation of water and power. Since there is no water, the world is controlled by the CWP with the exception of some chirpy individualists who live in a big house. Unfortunately for everyone but Tank Girl there all killed to provide a motivational force for TG to get even. JG’s reasons are easily defined but this is a comic book style movie we are talking about here.
I laughed and smiled the whole way through this picture and I predict that the reason this film flopped is because it is ahead of its time. In ten years people will be making films like Tank Girl and get rave reviews and then people like Siskel and Ebert and Leonard Maltin will have to sneak back and change their reviews so they won't look like such complete jack asses for not seeing the brilliant potential that this film oozed with. I mean finally a film that was willing to take chances with dialogue sets and characters without having to stoop to extra blood and bigger tits to pull it off and it gets panned universally. All I ever hear from reviewers when they are reviewing films is “boy this is just more of the same old crap we always see from Hollywood--why don’t they ever do something new.” Well now we know it is because most reviewers are even more retro scared of anything that might be different than the producers of Tank Girl. I mean they can sit and watch Halloween VIII: A New Beginning and talk about its merits as a picture but try something new and--BAM--it is ridiculous. Anyway, I liked this film a lot (Tank Girl not Halloween VIII). I think it shows potential for a different style and way of film making and story telling and I hope that people will see it on video. It is not a kids movie, it is not a child movie. It is a serious adolescent teenager flick or any adult comic book fan. Of course fans of the comic book might be disappointed in the liberties they took in converting the character to the screen but lets just say, get real fanboys All reviewers who aren’t me and disagree with anything I say... are just wrong.

Originally published by Under the Ozone Hole Number Thirteen – March, 1996