THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 7, 1995 TAG: 9504070056
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E9 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
BEFORE YOU SAY ``No tanks'' to ``Tank Girl,'' you might get in a campy mood and try this occasionally witty hymn to heavy metal. Based on an underground British comic strip, it stars a peroxide blonde who makes with the wisecracks while she rides a tank.
It's just offbeat enough to occasionally wake you up.
Lori Petty is tuff with a capital T as Rebecca Buck, who almost single-handedly fights Water and Power, an evil outfit that seeks to control all the precious water left in the year 2033. (It hasn't rained in a long, long time).
This is a kind of Mad Maxine yarn, a future world in which apparently things are a good deal worse.
Tank Girl and her girlfriend, Jet Girl (Naomi Watts) take on meanie Kesslee (Malcolm McDowell), the kind of villain who snarls things like ``My, my, she'll be fun to break.'' Having dispatched Captain Kirk earlier this year, McDowell seems to be making a career out of this kind of menacing.
Tank Girl easily breaks men's necks with her thighs. (Lena Olin did it just as well, but without laughs, in ``Romeo's Bleeding'').
She also does a big production number to Cole Porter's ``Let's Do It.'' It's the movie's highlight.
Such incongruous sophistication almost saves ``Tank Girl.'' There are animated sections between ``live'' scenes, complete with the kind of ``Pow!'' and ``Wow!'' flashes that date back to the TV version of ``Batman.''
Rapper Ice-T plays T-Saint, one of a band of half-kangaroo underground guys who hide in an abandoned bowling alley and act like college frat boys. When the script gets weak, which is more often than it should be, they wiggle their ears. They also liven things up by quoting Jack Kerouac.
Petty's style suggests Madonna in her low-rent era. Come to think of it, if Madonna had been smart, she would have taken this role. As it is, Lori is both sassy and brash, cracking double-entendres about the size of her tank.
It's much, much too long and it suffers dry spells but there are sparkling moments.
This is the kind of movie that probably won't attract the business it seeks from the targeted adolescent male audiences but may eventually turn up as a camp regular at midnight shows for the college crowd.
Now that Jane Fonda has gone legitimate as Mrs. Ted Turner, Tank Girl clearly wants to be the new Barbarella. MEMO: MOVIE REVIEW
``Tank Girl''
Cast: Lori Petty, Malcolm McDowell, Ice-T, Naomi Watts
Screenplay: Tedi Sarafian, based on the comic strip created by Alan
Martin and Jamie Hewlett
MPAA rating: R (It might have comic book orgins but it's not for
children)
Mal's rating: two and a half stars
Locations: Chesapeake Square in Chesapeake, Military Circle, R/C Main
Gate in Norfolk, Kempsriver Crossing, Lynnhaven, Surf-N-Sand in Virginia
Beach ILLUSTRATION: UNITED ARTISTS photo
Lori Petty, left, stars as Tank Girl, and Naomi Watts is her pal Jet
Girl in the futuristic action adventure ``Tank Girl.''
by CNB