When you’re surrounded by your entire fan club.
Frenetic and wild-eyed are the keywords for Tank Girl (1995), based on the cartoon of the same name. Set in the years following a cometary strike of Earth, the world’s water supply has dried up, and what little remains is controlled by Water & Power, the corporation of the evil Kesslee. But he doesn’t have full control, as Rebecca and her compatriots occupy some land under which there is water.
Rebecca is on guard duty when W&P attacks, and her band is wiped out, with the exception of herself and a young girl, both taken away by the attacking force. This leave the dangerous and mysterious Rippers as the sole opposition to Kesslee’s plan for domination. Therefore, he deviously uses Rebecca to search out the Rippers and lure them into a trap. However, they overwhelm the trappers and win the day.
Sounds mundane? I’m guessing there was a modicum of illegal drugs distributed among the moviemakers, between the wild makeup, the crazed plot, and Rebecca’s antics. And, to some extent, in a post-apocalyptic world, it almost seems like the desperation and skewed realities that might exist in such a world are mirrored in Rebecca’s behavior.
But under the remarkable, if scant, dialog and sometimes frantic creativity, there’s almost nothing. No clever twists to the plot, no real insights into much of anything. Does Rebecca care about the young girl? I couldn’t tell ’til the end. Rebecca may be insane, charismatic, desperate, frenetic, smart-mouthed, or many other adjectives, but she swims in an ocean of nothingness, where nothing really seems to bother her. Is she Superwoman, the next step in human evolution – or someone better suited for an insane asylum? It may be entertaining to speculate on the final answer, but this movie is all flash, with no footprints left in your mind afterwards.
