After a comet has turned the world into a desert, Rebecca (Lori Petty) lives with her friends in the wastelands, stealing water from the Water and Power Corporation and its leader, the local dictator, Kesslee (Malcolm McDowell). Without ever planning to, Rebecca ends up in a fight between Kesslee and the secretive, mutant Rippers. Luckily, she has on her side a shy but plucky ace mechanic, Jet Girl (Naomi Watts), and her trusty stolen tank.
Wearing its comic heritage as a badge of honor, Tank Girl is a colorful, epileptic film for the short-attention-span generation. Animated scenes and still illustrations pop in to compress what otherwise might be slow sections, and alterna-pop (and rap) fill any quiet moments. Lori Petty has the joy for the role of the always happy, smartass punk who is never out of one-liners. She runs about shooting people and initiating a Cole Porter dance number with equal foresight.
The film, and the underground comic that spawned it, have been labeled post-modern and post-feminist, which is too much for this flimsy flick to support. There’s some fun, but if there’s a philosophy here, then Bart Simpson is Plato.
Even as an anarchic distraction, Tank Girl doesn’t quiet work. The story is the stuff of fifty other cheap, grade-D flicks, with the post-apocalyptic desert acting as theqr the battle between a heroic warrior and an over-the-top, evil megalomaniac. Replace Petty with any tall, beefed-up kick boxer and you’ve seen this film on late night. It doesn’t help that Malcolm McDowell has played this same villain over and over.
But the reused plot is only part of the betrayal of the punk roots. The entire tone is wrong. This is subversive stuff, sanitized for your protection. A true punk heroine would have been a pleasure, with excessive violence, nudity, and something to shock society. Instead, the worst thing your grandma might say about Tank Girl is that she really should use less foul language. Tank Girl shouldn’t be fighting the forces of darkness with a band of heroes (and saving children; my God she actually saves children!), but should be ripping at the structure of society. Punk without the edge is just bad fashion.
What could have been an in-your-face cult classic is an amusing family film with some R-rated language.