Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Tank Girl Blu-ray Movie Review

A Girl and Her 'Roo.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 8, 2013

Variety just published its annual Power of Women issue, replete with separate collectible covers featuring iconic distaff stars and page after page of homages to scores of females who are helping to define the contemporary film industry, both in front of and behind the camera. Just for good measure, the magazine published an old archival ad from 1916 touting the latest Mary Pickford opus, one that came from her own pre-United Artists production entity, in order to show that women have always been in positions of power in cinema, albeit probably not in the numbers they currently enjoy. Though it’s probably worthy of little more than a footnote in this still developing story of gender equality (or at least neutrality), 1995’s Tank Girl is a flawed but fascinatingly gynocentric sci-fi film that not only features women in many of the featured roles (including the lead), it also was directed by a female and at least one of its women production staff, Catherine Hardwicke, has gone on to substantial success, helping to make the Twilight Saga one of the most lucrative franchises of the last decade or so. Tank Girl’s director Rachel Talalay is on record (including on the commentary included on this Blu-ray as a supplementary feature) as saying the meddlesome intrusion by United Artists and the producers kept the film from being all the it could have been, which may be true, however self-serving it may sound. Some of what’s wrong with Tank Girl probably can’t be blamed on anyone other than Talalay, though, for the film is often unkempt and undisciplined, something that most likely is completely in tune with the slacker ethos of the film’s source comic book, but which comes across in cinematic terms as a sort of lazy “let’s see what happens” approach that deprives the film of much dramatic momentum. Still, Tank Girl has its charms, and has a peculiarly feminine viewpoint which sets it apart from most of its similarly themed post-apocalyptic kin.

Maybe Shout! Factory is promoting equal rights in post-Apocalyptic films, for the label just recently released A Boy and His Dog, the charmingly offbeat 1977 film written by Harlan Ellison and directed by L.Q. Jones. Tank Girl doesn’t quite have the acerbic bite of A Boy and His Dog, but it has much the same off kilter humor and even in some ways the same barren, arid post- Apocalyptic landscape (including a more or less simultaneous timeframe, separated by only a few years). If Boy’s frequent quest was for food (along with copious amounts of sex), Girl does similar duty for water, in a world where two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen have become as valuable as the most precious metal.

Perhaps because it was based on a comic book, Tank Girl (which in fact includes comic book like interstitials throughout the film) often feels like a fairly two dimensional, undeveloped affair itself. Tank Girl (Lori Petty) is a scavenger cum resistance fighter who tools about mostly in a tank (though we also see her on the back of a water buffalo). She’s an obvious spitfire, one who isn’t about to take anyone’s guff (including her boyfriend, whom she makes strip at the point of a gun), but who also shows a relatively calm nurturing side to young girl Sam (Stacy Linn Ramsower). Meanwhile, arch villain Kesslee (Malcolm McDowell in his most over the top mode), who runs the local all knowing, all seeing water and power company, has his henchmen attack Tank Girl’s hideout in order to stop water thefts. That sets up the bulk of the film where Tank Girl, now a prisoner, attempts to work with Jet Girl (Naomi Watts), another longtime prisoner of Kesslee’s, to literally bring down the man (or in this case, men).

Tank Girl and Jet Girl manage to escape when a devious plan by Kesslee to capture a mutant species of human- kangaroo hybrid (that is not a typo) called Rippers backfires, and instead Kesslee is more or less blown to smithereens. Tank Girl and Jet Girl, soon joined by yet another odd duck, Sub Girl (Ann Cusack), set out to find little Sam, who has disappeared in the melée, but who is according to Sub Girl now working in a decidedly “adult” environment. This leads to perhaps the film’s weirdest element, a quasi-hallucinogenic “floor show” replete with singing, dancing and, just for good measure, Iggy Pop.

Ultimately things of course wend back to a showdown with Kesslee, who has now kind of been rebuilt “better than he was”, and who has in the meantime captured Sam yet again. A noisy firefight involving Tank Girl and the Rippers ensues, with fairly predictable results. Tank Girl is an often brash, undeniably colorful, entry in the post- Apocalyptic genre, but it’s frankly too chaotic for its own good. The story never really goes anywhere, and in fact tends to circle back on itself more than once, and the characters are simply, well, two dimensional cartoons. That all might have been fine had the film benefited from an immense budget where sheer visual audacity could have helped distract wandering (and critical) minds, but Tank Girl, for all the insouciant flair brought to the production design by Catherine Hardwicke and her crew, has a kind of cheap, knock off quality to it that makes a lot of the film play like a slightly glossy student production.

Tank Girl, like so many other initially derided and commercially unsuccessful films, has developed a rather rabid cult following over the past couple of decades, and there is admittedly a fair amount of wacky charm running rampant through the film. But this is one entry where even devoted aficionados might be wondering, like director Rachel Talalay herself, what might have been, rather than what actually ended up on the screen in all its disheveled glory.

Tank Girl Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Tank Girl is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Shout! Factory with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. The film is relentlessly colorful, and this high definition presentation reproduces the gamut of gaudy blues and bawdy reds very well. Fine detail is excellent, especially in close-ups (take a look at Petty's face in screenshot 10 for a good example), revealing nice facets like the tweedy pattern of Jet Girl's jacket or the felt like texture of Tank Girl's bowler hat. The elements have some very minor age related issues, mostly relegated to very small specks and white flecks, as well as very minimal scratches. While this is not a razor sharp presentation, it retains a naturally filmic appearance, with a natural layer of fine grain which is especially evident in the brightly lit outdoor scenes. As should be expected, the opticals (including some of the effects) have considerably more grain and dirt than the bulk of this presentation. Contrast is generally quite good, but tends to vary slightly in some dimmer scenes.

Tank Girl Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

One of the best things about Tank Girl is its use of source cues as well as the "built in" musical sequence featuring the music of Cole Porter, and that aspect is really exploited very well in the lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix which is included on this Blu-ray, along with a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix. The 5.1 mix significantly opens up the soundfield in several set pieces and also has some occasionally nice discrete channelization with regard to individual effects, but dialogue is anchored front and center almost all of the time. Fidelity is excellent on both of these tracks, but the 5.1 mix is much more fulsome in the mid- and lower ranges, as should be expected. Dynamic range is quite wide.

Tank Girl Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Baseball, Tanks and Bad Tattoos: An Interview with Actress Lori Petty (1080p; 22:37) is a fun piece that serves as a bit of a career retrospective for Petty, who is quite animated throughout the interview.


• Too Hip for Spielberg: An Interview with Director Rachel Talalay (1080p; 23:53). Talalay has a bunch of props and other memorabilia from the production which she displays here, and she is obviously excited to be talking about the film.


• Creative Chaos: Designing the World of Tank Girl with Production Designer Catherine Hardwicke (1080p; 18:08). Hardwicke has of course gone on to great fame due to her association with the Twilight franchise, but Hardwicke is obviously very enthused about recounting her adventures as the production designer on this film.


• Vintage Making of Tank Girl Featurette (1080i; 5:03) is sourced from old (faded) video and has a timecode caption at the bottom of the frame.


• Trailer (1080p; 1:36)


• Commentary with Actress Lori Petty and Director Rachel Talalay. Talalay just kicks this off (it almost sounds like she had started talking before the recording began) and never gets around to actually introducing Petty. Petty has some funny comments along the way, and Talalay talks about some of the rigors of the shoot and how the studio repeatedly interfered with her "vision" for the film.

Tank Girl Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It's easy to understand why Tank Girl has achieved the cult status it has, but when all is said and done, the film is really an example of unfulfilled potential. It's goofy and quite enjoyable in dribs and drabs, but it's too chaotic and noisy for its own good and it never quite attains the lunatic humor it's obviously aiming for. Still, fans of the film should be delighted with this Blu-ray release, which offers very good technical merits while also presenting some appealing supplements.