Tank Girl (film)

In 1988, about a year after the launch of the Tank Girl comic in the British magazine Deadline, its publisher, Tom Astor, began looking for a studio interested in making a film adaptation. While several studios, including New Line Cinema, expressed interest, progress was slow.[9] Rachel Talalay's stepdaughter gave her a Tank Girl comic to read while she was shooting her directorial debut film, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (released in 1991). Talalay read the comic between takes and became interested in directing a Tank Girl film.[10] She contacted Astor and, after hearing nothing for almost a year, was about to give up trying to secure the rights when he gave her permission to make the film.[11] Talalay pitched the film to Amblin Entertainment and Columbia Pictures, which both turned it down. Talalay turned down an offer from Disney, as she did not believe the studio would allow the levels of violence and the sexual references the plot required.[11] An offer from MGM was accepted.[12] Talalay worked closely with the Tank Girl comic's co-creators Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett during the film's production, and selected Catherine Hardwicke to be the production designer. The studio was unhappy with Hardwicke, who was relatively unknown at the time, being chosen over more experienced designers, and Talalay had to meet with the producers to persuade them to allow Hardwicke to work on the project.[13] Tedi Sarafian wrote the screenplay and Gale Tattersall was chosen as cinematographer.[14] Believing that MGM would not allow the depiction of a bestial relationship in the film, the romance between Tank Girl and Booga was only written into the second or third version of the script, after the character was already established in the minds of people involved in the production. By this stage, Booga: "was a character and not just a kangaroo [so] it wasn't an issue anymore."[15]

MGM held open casting sessions in London, Los Angeles, and New York for the role of Tank Girl. According to Talalay, "two or three" of the Spice Girls met while waiting in line for the auditions;[16] Victoria Beckham and Geri Halliwell can be seen standing next to each-other in footage from the event.[17] There was skepticism towards the audition even at the time,[13] and Talalay later confirmed it was a publicity stunt arranged by MGM;[17] Talalay had already been asking the studio to cast a well-known English actress, Emily Lloyd. Talalay says she fired Lloyd after she refused to cut her hair for the role.[13][18] Lloyd, who had spent four months training for the role, disputes this, saying production had been going well until Talalay found out she was staying at the same hotel as Sarafian. Lloyd says it was a coincidence and she barely spoke to Sarafian, and could only speculate as to why Talalay subsequently became "frosty with both of [them]" and then fired her, ostensibly for rescheduling her appointment with the film's hair stylist.[19] Talalay cast Lori Petty, an American, because "she is crazy in her own life and [the film] needed somebody like that."[20] MGM faxed Deadline asking them for an "ideal cast" list; they selected Malcolm McDowell for Kesslee, but never believed MGM would actually contact him.[21] McDowell has spoken favorably of his experience working on the film, saying it had the "same flavour" as A Clockwork Orange, and praised Talalay and Petty.[22] Talalay was approached by several people who wanted cameos in the film, but she did not want the film to be overshadowed by such appearances. Two cameos were settled on – Iggy Pop was given the role of Rat Face, and Björk was offered Sub Girl. She later dropped out, her character's scenes were rewritten, and the role was then given to Ann Cusack.[23]

Tank Girl was filmed over 16 weeks,[24] in three locations; desert scenes were filmed in White Sands, New Mexico, the Liquid Silver club set was built at an abandoned shopping mall in Phoenix, Arizona,[25] and all remaining scenes were filmed within 40 miles of Tucson, Arizona.[26] Many scenes were filmed in an abandoned open-pit mine, where filming had to be halted one day due to a chemical leak. Permission was received to film the water pipe scenes at the Titan Missile Museum, near the mine, but the day before shooting, permission was withdrawn. These scenes were filmed, instead, in a tunnel at the abandoned mine. New sets were often found by simply searching the mine.[27] Principal photography was completed on September 27, 1994,[13] two days over schedule, though still within the original budget.[28]

The tank as seen in the film, which featured accessories ranging from lawn chairs to rocket launchers[29] The rear section of a 1969 Cadillac Eldorado is visible at the back of the tank.

In the comics, the Rippers are considerably more kangaroo-like. However, Talalay wanted real actors rather than stuntmen in suits playing the roles. She asked Hewlett to redesign the Rippers to make them more human, allowing them to have the actual actors' facial expressions.[21] Requests were sent out to "all the major make-up and effects people", including Stan Winston, whose prior work included the Terminator films, Aliens and Jurassic Park. Talalay said that while she considered Winston to be the best, she did not expect to hear back from him.[30] When she did, she still did not think that she would be able to afford his studio on her budget. A meeting was arranged and Winston insisted on being given the project, saying the Rippers would be: "the best characters we've had the opportunity to do."[31] Winston's studio cut their usual prices in half to meet the film's budget.[31] Eight Rippers were featured in the film: half were given principal roles, the others were mainly in the background. Each Ripper had articulated ears and tails which were activated by remote control, and the background Rippers also had mechanical snouts which could be activated either by remote control or by the movement of the actors' mouths.[32] Each Ripper's make-up took about four hours to apply. Three technicians from Winston's studio were required to work on each Ripper's articulations during filming; no puppets or digital effects were used for the Rippers.[33]

The tank used in the film is a modified M5A1 Stuart. It was purchased from the government of Peru about 12 years prior to filming and had already been used in several films. Among numerous modifications made for Tank Girl, the tank's 37 mm antitank gun was covered with a modified flag pole to give the appearance of a 105 mm gun. An entire 1969 Cadillac Eldorado was added onto the tank, with the rear section welded at the back and the fender welded to the front.[34]

A "naked Ripper suit" incorporating a prosthetic penis was created for Booga and used in a filmed postcoital scene which was removed from the final version of the film at the studio's insistence.[11] Deborah Cartmell described the "postcoital scene" in the final version, which featured Booga fully clothed, as "carefully edited".[35] Against Talalay's wishes, the studio made several other edits to the film. The scene in which Kesslee tortures Tank Girl was cut heavily on the grounds that she appeared "too ugly" while being tortured. Also cut was a scene showing Tank Girl's bedroom, which was shown to be decorated with dozens of dildos, and a scene in which she places a condom on a banana before throwing it at a soldier. The role of Sub Girl was originally intended to be larger; at least two scenes featuring the character were cut from the film, including her appearance in the original ending. The studio cut the original ending, a live-action scene in which it begins to rain; the film was to have ended with Tank Girl burping.[11]

• "B-A-B-Y" by Rachel Sweet[46]
• "Big Time Sensuality" by Björk[46]
• "Blank Generation" by Richard Hell and the Voidoids[46]
• "Disconnected" by Face to Face[47]
• "Shipwrecked" by Sky Cries Mary[46]
• "Theme from Shaft" by Isaac Hayes[11]
• "2¢" by Beowülf[46]
• "Wild, Wild, Thing" by Iggy Pop[46]

Malcolm McDowell, who portrayed the film's main villain Kesslee, in 2011

Tank Girl premiered at the Mann Chinese Theatre on March 30, 1995. Approximately 1,500 people attended the screening, including Talalay, Petty, Ice-T, McDowell, Watts, and several other actors from the film, as well as Rebecca De Mornay, Lauren Tom, Brendan Fraser and Jason Simmons. Men in W&P costumes handed out bottles of mineral water, and girls dressed in Liquid Silver outfits gave out Astro Pops, candy cigarettes, and Tank Girl candy necklaces. About 400 people attended the official after-party at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.[48] The film opened in cinemas across the United States the following day.[2]

Tank Girl opened in 1,341 theatres in the United States bringing in $2,018,183 in its first weekend[49] and $2,684,430 at the end of its first week of release. By the end of its second week, Tank Girl had made only $3,668,762. Its final gross in the United States was $4,064,495.[2] Internationally, the film added approximately $2,000,000 to that total,[3] against a production budget of $25 million.[2]

The film holds an approval ratings of 40% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 43 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads: "While unconventional, Tank Girl isn't particularly clever or engaging, and none of the script's copious one-liners have any real zing."[50] On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 46 out of 100, based on reviews from 23 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[4] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B on scale of A to F.[51]

Lamar Hafildason of the BBC gave the film one out of five stars, saying: "Sadly, the BBC does not pay out for one-word reviews. If it did, then this review would read simply: 'tiresome'."[52] In 2001, Matt Brunson from Creative Loafing gave the film one and a half stars out of four, saying its soundtrack and the glimpse of Naomi Watt's early career were its only redeeming qualities.[53] Jonathan Rosenbaum gave a moderately positive reviews, concluding: "unless you're a preteen boy who hates girls, it's funnier and a lot more fun than Batman Forever."[54]

Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars. While praising the film's ambition, he concluded it was hard to care about it for long as its "manic energy" wore him down.[55] Janet Maslin made similar comments about the impact of the film's over-the-top style. Her mixed review also criticised the film's "pointless" plot, though praised the performances of both McDowell and Petty.[56] Owen Gleiberman said Petty's performance was the only good part of the otherwise "amateurish" film, giving it an overall C− rating.[36] Leonard Klady from Variety was more critical of Petty, saying she "has the spunk but, sadly, not the heart of the post-apocalyptic heroine", also stating the film lacked an engaging story to draw its intriguing elements together.[57]

Retrospective reviews of Tank Girl have tended to be more positive. In 2015, Elizabeth Sankey said that while plot and continuity issues left the film "tremendously flawed", she still could not help loving it, praising its soundtrack and costuming. Petty's performance was particularly revered, as was the character of Tank Girl.[58] In 2020, Megan Carpentier from NBC News gave a positive review, saying it was too ahead of its time and attributing its initial poor reception to its feminist themes both unsettling the all male producers and executives enough to make heavy cuts to the film, and also not appealing to the mostly male film critics at the time.[59] That same year, Jef Rouner from the San Francisco Chronicle called Tank Girl the most underappreciated comic book film, praising its style and the performance and chemistry between Petty and McDowell,[60] and Cheryl Eddy from Gizmodo described it as a "fun-as-hell" film that had "long since made up for its tepid box-office take by becoming a cult sensation."[61]

Tank Girl was released on DVD by MGM on April 10, 2001.[62] Aaron Beierle from DVD Talk gave the DVD three and a half stars out of five for both video and audio quality, though only half a star for special features, noting that only the original trailer was included.[63]

Shout! Factory acquired the rights to several MGM films, including Tank Girl, and subsequently released a US Blu-ray version on November 19, 2013. Special features included the original trailer, a 'Making of' featurette, a commentary track with Petty and Talalay, and interviews with Talalay, Petty, and Hardwicke. Jeffrey Kauffman from Blu-ray.com gave the version four stars out of five for audio and video quality and three stars for special features.[64] M. Enois Duarte from highdefdigest.com gave the version three and a half stars out of five for video quality, four stars for audio quality, and two and a half stars for extras.[65] The Blu-ray has not been released internationally.