TANK GIRL (1995)

To those born after the 1990s, who saw Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) and Birds of Prey (2020) and wondered why the hell we have to wait so damn long for a kick-ass female-led action adventure: let’s journey back to the distant past of 1995 for Tank Girl.

There are clear comparisons to be drawn between the chaotic, irreverent heroines of Tank Girl and Harley Quinn. And yet, Tank Girl was created four years before Harley and got her own movie before the post-millennium boom of comic-book movies still retained the seemingly endless stigma on female-led movies after Catwoman (2004) and Elektra (2005) were flopping.

’90s comic-book movies were the Wild West and oddities like Tank Girl and Barb Wire (1996) now seem to exist as a pre-emptive middle finger to the corporate likes of Marvel Studios sitting on whether Black Widow deserved her own solo film despite being in the Avengers with her cohorts having trilogies by that point. That being said, director Rachel Talalay was recognising what anarchist potential she had when pitching and found Steven Spielberg’s company were concerned with her “thinking that we’re hip enough to do this, but we’re not” and James Cameron’s company unironically stating that “we already have a movie with a female lead”.

Tank Girl is worthwhile viewing decades later for its punk-rock, take-no-prisoners third-wave feminism. For all its faults, the film was a wrecking ball to mainstream expectations of what a female-led popcorn movie could be.

In 2033 A.D, several years after a meteor caused global droughts that transformed the Earth into a Mad Max-style wasteland, free-spirited survivor Rebecca ‘Tank Girl’ Buck (Lori Petty) angers the oppressive Water & Power corporation hoarding the planet’s H2O. Refusing to kneel to ‘The Man’, she and her best friend Jet Girl (Naomi Watts) help genetically modified kangaroo soldiers in battling the company’s villainous CEO, Kesslee (Malcolm McDowell). Yeah, that sounds like a comic book.

The high-concept pitch is, to modern eyes, Harley Quinn: Fury Road. While Max was a former cop upholding the last echo of masculine order, Rebecca’s out to prove that fun can survive an apocalypse. This is felt throughout the film as Talalay takes heed of the advice given to her by John Waters while producing Hairspray (1988) and Cry-Baby (1990): “Make the movie that you want to make”. Talalay demonstrated this attitude early with her barmy ‘conclusion’ to the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991); from teens finding themselves trapped in a video game controlled by Freddy Krueger, to the villain’s own screaming head hurtling towards audiences in stereoscopic 3D.

With that experience arose some love-hate backlash. If you wanted something similar to Wes Craven’s original, you sure didn’t find it with Talalay’s sixth Elm Street. And with Tank Girl, if you expected Mad Max, you weren’t going to get that either. As Talalay said: “I wanted to make a film that was a plus or a minus, you either get it or you don’t.” Tank Girl is a comic-book movie that gleefully shoos away any logistical questions with a curt “it’s a comic-book movie”. I certainly don’t care how Tank Girl changes her hairstyle every other scene, but some issues are slightly harder to shake.

Opening with a frenetic montage of comic-book artwork by Tank Girl co-creator Jamie Hewlett (who later designed the cartoon band Gorillaz), the sequence determines whether or not this film’s for you. Roughly 25% of the movie relies on these animated inserts to cover the $25M budgetary restrictions to help do Tank Girl justice.

The pre-Twilight (2008) production designer Catherine Hardwicke does an admirable job in building this wasteland out and the creativity shines in every set dressing. Tank Girl’s bedroom adorned with dozens of dildos was sadly scrapped, but the overall anarchy of her world wages its own war against the monolithic corporate culture of W&P for a consistently engaging visual spectacle.

Performances are just as vibrantly animated to match the backdrop and nobody stands out more than Tank Girl herself. Lori Petty nails the eponymous bad-ass chick role so effortlessly, it’s a wonder they ever considered anyone else for the role. With her hyper-energetic attitude, it never once feels like a performance, she is Tank Girl. McDowell even praised his experience shooting the film, likening it to A Clockwork Orange (1971), in which he gleefully drinks water drained fresh from his unwilling minions before exclaiming “Lovely!” It’s a prime baddie role with absolutely no excess nuance, one that he slips into as comfortably as Petty does hers.

Worth mentioning the presence of two other stars. A pre-fame Naomi Watts, well, she was one every Aussie telly with Home and Away, and gets to keep her native accent in this. If her incredibly introverted performance feels realistic, that’s because it was genuine and Petty had to get her to stop hiding behind her during all their scenes. It makes her newfound confidence all the more rewarding by the end of the story.

The other star is Ice-T, hidden underneath a ton of make-up as the lead kangaroo-man T-Saint. According to supporting star Doug Jones, Ice-T signed up thinking he was a stripper and was then confused what a Ripper was. Nevertheless, he refused to back out of a challenge and dove into the heavy prosthetics that many actors dread.

Film critic Roger Ebert’s main gripe was how non-stop everything felt, and I wouldn’t mind that at all if it’s what Tank Girl actually felt like. After introducing herself and her home in the wasteland, she messes up guard duty one night and lets a death squad take out her friends who’ve been siphoning from W&P. The first act tests her devil-may-care attitude under imprisonment, forced labour, and torture… which starts the story with the hero at her lowest point.

It’s like wanting to see Harley Quinn have fun doing crimes, but she’s literally restrained in Arkham Asylum for the first half-hour. And yes, Fury Road does actually start quite similarly, but he’s dragged along into the chaos without delay. Tank Girl tells us how cool Tank Girl is and makes us wait too long for her to start doing cool stuff.

After this initial slog, we move from wacky moment to bonkers moment, much like the issues of a comic book. Talalay resisted any interference in explaining her motivations, and I can understand that: she is Tank Girl, why would you want anything else? At the same time, the aimless drifters of Max and Harley have their respective Furiosa and Cassandra, who really drive the plot forward. Tank and Jet have the Rippers, I guess? Obviously, there’s the first act of torture, but then she’s so care-free there’s no room for even the inkling of residual trauma.

Witnessing Tank Girl parachute alongside her automated tank, spraying down bullets to Ice-T’s “Big Gun”, is a genuine joy— and not just for the zaniness but the satisfying development of them leading the revolution. A sequence to contrast that with is when her ten-year-old friend Sam (Stacy Linn Ramsower) is sold to an upper-class sex club, and Tank Girl performs a full song-and-dance routine to Cole Porter’s “Let’s Do It”. It’s unashamedly entertaining in visuals and Petty’s performance, and it fits her second-wave feminism perfectly. But she is also singing and dancing with a bunch of sex pests instead of mowing them down in her tank. It’s even more narratively frustrating as her silly antics only get Sam kidnapped again.

Those questionable elements of Tank Girl as a character start building up. Birds of Prey deepened Harley as the annoying clown-girl to someone recovering from a long stint of co-dependency, which drives her to find real friendships with other women. They call her out on her annoying traits, and refreshing rapport bolsters their communal emancipation. Mad Max, by his very moniker, had turned feral, surviving alone, and reclaims his humanity after inspiration from Furiosa’s indomitable spirit in saving other women.

In the passionate pursuit of bringing life to a character like Tank Girl, all her wanton carpe diem behaviour is put front and centre. She comes off more like Clint Eastwood in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), dragging poor Jet Girl along like Eli Wallach.

Jet’s a woman who realises that her pacification may avoid conflict and learns to harness her own inner Tank Girl to aid in the revolution. But Tank Girl never really teaches her directly, or at least has any altruistic interest in doing so. A moment many fans adore is Jet Girl being saved from likely rape with Tank Girl interrupting and kissing her. Luckily, this man is repulsed by girl-on-girl action. And Tank Girl still ‘saves the day’ by forcing herself onto a desperately shy stranger. But it’s cool because we know Tank Girl is cool, and why wouldn’t Jet Girl want to kiss her!? Jet does save her life in return, but Tank Girl promptly throttles her demanding she help her escape.

No doubt seeing Watts and Petty kiss was a pivotal moment for young queers in the 1990s, but how did they respond to meeting the half-kangaroo Rippers that Tank Girl eagerly nudges Jet Girl to engage sexually with? A dated concept that casual hetero sex is exactly what Jet Girl needs to come out of her shell. Just because Tank Girl’s down with hooking up doesn’t mean that Jet’s fine with it too! In many scenes, Jet Girl is seen interacting with the overly horny mutants with looks of shock and disgust, and the attempts at comedy are strange when the message comes across as she’ll learn to enjoy it.

This is like an inversion to when Ally Sheedy got a makeover in The Breakfast Club (1985) and her character’s identity was suddenly altered; the solution to becoming a stronger woman is becoming exactly like Tank Girl.

There’s a tinge of guilt that this retrospective has been ‘tainted’ by a sour note. For anyone who hasn’t seen Tank Girl yet, watch the trailer to get a taste of its Adderall-pumped punk aesthetic. It’s a surprisingly gorgeous experience that isn’t hampered by criticisms when one’s being distracted by Malcolm McDowell with a holographic head deflecting tank-fired beer cans with his cyber-arm to a soundtrack compiled by Courtney Love.

Becoming a cult classic since its disastrous box-office gross of $6M, Rachel Talalay genuinely believed her outrageous female action hero was going to change things. And she did, eventually. Margot Robbie herself is currently trying to produce a reboot (she’d make a great Tank Girl, but then she did make a great Harley Quinn), and pop culture for comic-book movies has flourished into a scene for loud and proud women. With only two features on her filmography, which were both seen as disappointments, Talalay instead carved out a success in TV directing popular shows like Doctor Who, Sherlock (2010-17), and Riverdale (2017-2023). And even with all those mega fandoms, fans at cons still bring her Tank Girl items to sign.

Oh, that female-led production from Cameron’s company, it was Joan of Arc. Not the 1999 Milla Jovovich one, or the 1999 Leelee Sobieski one, I don’t believe this film ever materialised. Talalay didn’t know what to say in comparing such contrasting stories, but I think Tank Girl was our patron saint martyr for kick-ass comic women. Or maybe Talalay was, who was simply working off visions of what could be.

USA | 1995 | MINUTES | 2.39:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Limited Edition Blu-ray Special Features:

• Audio commentary with director Rachel Talalay and star Lori Petty. A fair number of points from the featurettes are repeated here but are often elaborated on with a little more detail. Being together gives those anecdotes a more conversational style, which has positives and negatives. True to their nature, the two are often running at completely different speeds, with Talaley focused on what’s onscreen and the more hyper Petty talking about events much later in the film. In a few instances, this results in either them repeating points or leaving space for Petty to fill time with amusing moments, like mentioning shots she’s seen online as GIFs and explaining what a GIF is to Talaley. I’ll let you guess which way Lori Petty pronounces GIF. The enduring love they hold for their work is evident, and you’re likely buying this release as a fan and so will enjoy their banter. The commentary is originally from the 2013 Shout! Factory Blu-ray, as are many of the featurettes. Ordinarily, you would have no reason to notice until Petty talks about Naomi Watts starring in “maybe the biggest movie of the year next year… Princess Di”. That laugh-out-loud moment alone was worth the listen.

• ‘Girl U Want’ —a  new appreciation of Tank Girl with film scholar and fan Lindsay Hallam (19:29 mins.) Hallam offers an informed appraisal of Tank Girl, emphasizing significant production factors. She frames her approach with a personal perspective, from adoring Lori Petty and her perfect casting to how Naomi Watts was a well-known Australian face from Home and Away and Brides of Christ. Cultural influences leading up to the film are emphasized, with Gen X irony-laden culture and the punk alternative becoming more mainstream. More detailed specifics are provided, such as Tank Girl being a comic for adults in a wave of titles like Preacher, Sandman, and Transmetropolitan. Great points are made in paralleling Talalay with other female directors like Penny Marshall and Kathryn Bigelow and highlighting Elaine May’s Ishtar as a similar example of a woman’s failure railroading their entire career. In contrast, male directors are afforded far more flops.
• ‘Not a Bedtime Story’—new interview with artist Greg Staples on Tank Girl from page to screen (11:59  mins.) Having worked on numerous comics, including many issues of Tank Girl, Staples focuses on the film’s visual flair. He praises the adaptation’s faithfulness to the iconic imagery, from the tank to her wardrobe, and the punk-rock attitude in every image. Eureka Entertainment is also complimented for approaching him for new artwork for this release. They demonstrated their enthusiasm with specific references to his existing work, while allowing him the freedom to pursue a direction he hadn’t usually employed in his comic work.
• ‘Baseball, Tanks and Bad Tattoos’— archival interview with star Lori Petty (22:37  mins.) The Shout Factory featurettes take a scattershot approach to interviews, firing rapid questions on a wide range of topics. Petty discusses her acting experiences in Point Break (1991), A League of Their Own (1992), the Psycho (1998) remake, and even her brief role in Freddy’s Nightmares (1988-1990). She’s asked separately about every major cast member and naturally has positive things to say about them all. One notable anecdote, which will be mentioned elsewhere, is her odd friendship with Ice-T. As the Ripper actors rarely appeared out of costume, she knows him as the talking kangaroo man.
• ‘Too Hip for Spielberg’—archival interview with director Rachel Talalay (23:53 mins.) Talalay has plenty to say and show for her film. Starting with all the props she still owns, such as the bazooka bra and fortune-telling blade, along with framed artwork and photos that showcase how much Tank Girl will always mean to her. More than show and tell, Talalay also goes into great depth, discussing her immediate passion for adapting the comic. There are stories telling it like it is, of pitching it to huge studios only to hear “We already have a female-led project”. Obviously, the film does get made, and she praises the like-minded talent who believed in Tank Girl.
• ‘Creative Chaos’—archival interview with production designer Catherine Hardwicke (18:08 mins.) Hardwicke discusses the exciting challenges of filming on location for Tank Girl and the unforgettable working conditions that brought them together as a unit. Between the routine military bombings and chemical spills, the cast and crew were having a wonderfully creative time in the abandoned mining sites. Making use of all the machinery and vehicles left behind to build their post-apocalyptic punk wasteland, Hardwicke paints a vivid picture of this unique experience.
• ‘The Shape of Ripper’—archival interview with actor Doug Jones (11:31 mins.) A fun talk from a character actor, far more known today, looking back at one of his first major films. His insight into the process of becoming the rippers is fascinating, with a unique perspective on enduring the sweltering conditions of Arizona while in heavy make-up. Jones also gives major credit to Ice-T, who took on the role with no real idea of what it entailed but stuck with the craft instead of backing out.
• ‘(Tank) Girl Power’—video essay from Alexandra Heller-Nicholas (10:15 mins.) A well-rehearsed presentation that takes us on a dizzying tour of the Gen X movement with third-wave feminism on-screen from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003), Scream (1996), The Craft (1996), Spice World (1997), and many more, to the main feature, Tank Girl. Though brief, it gives an excellent 101 introduction to this period of pop culture and how it provided a generation with an all-new release for the real issues of the time.
• ‘Making Tank Girl’—archival 1995 featurette (5:05 mins.) Promotional material for when the film was released. It’s nice to hear from the cast and crew during production excitedly talking about Tank Girl. Plus, it contains the only interview footage of Ice-T.

Cast & Crew

director: Rachel Talalay.
writers: Tedi Sarafian (based on the comic-book by Alan Martin & Jamie Hewlett).
starring: Lori Petty, Ice-T, Naomi Watts & Malcolm McDowell.