Waterworld

During my time as a projectionist there was a spate of futuristic dystopian films all released within weeks of each other: Tank Girl (already covered in this blog), Judge Dredd, and this, the most expensive film ever made (at the time), Waterworld.

Waterworld was cursed from the beginning, and primed to fail by critics and reviewers even before filming had been completed. There were reports of onset arguments, tales of Costner living a life of luxury while the other cast & crew were housed in shacks without air-con, and even weather problems, as high winds, rain & hurricanes buffeted the sets. One storm even destroyed an entire set, resulting in a sub-plot about slavers having to be discarded. 

In all honesty though, what was seen as a vanity project after star Kevin Costner & director Kevin Reynolds took the reins on what was meant to be a kids adventure movie (a kind of Mad Max meets the Goonies) is actually not that bad.

Many still point to the huge budget, over $175m, as being massively excessive, and, while they're right, it has to be said that that's been surpassed many times since then. And, unlike so many other films with similarly huge budgets, you can really see where the money went in Waterworld. The sets & effects are fantastic.

Interestingly, Waterworld is also not the huge loss-making flop that many still view it as. It actually turned a small profit, especially once released on VHS (& later DVD) and watching it now, it stands up as a decent film.

We open with the Universal logo, a spinning planet Earth than film-goers know well. Only this time the land starts to disappear under the water as the polar ice-caps melt. A booming voice over tells us that this is "The future... [I don't think it's mentioned, but it's meant to be 2500]. The polar ice caps have melted, covering the earth with water. Those who survived have adapted, to a new world."

We zoom down to the planet to see a cup, perched on a rusty trimaran, and Costner's Mariner is peeing in it. Probably the only big budget film to start with such an opening scene.

The Mariner then takes his pee, pours it into a filtration device, and after it's done what it needs to do, he takes a drink of the resultant clear fluid, then spits whats left onto a small lime tree. While water may be everywhere, it's clear that the drinkable stuff is in short supply.

The Mariner then dives overboard, while the camera then takes a tour of the boat, showing us the various present-day stuff that he has accumulated over time.

While he's underwater we see a hand reach out & pluck the limes from his tree, then , when he eventually surfaces, carrying a pair of boots & leaving a glass jar floating in the water, we see a boat moored up alongside the trimaran & a fellow sailor aboard.

The two talk & the other sailor speaks of an atoll, 8 days sailing away from where they are, and where he was able to find supplies. The other sailor also talks of the amount of time the Mariner was underwater, to which he offers as a reason that his hull is damaged and has an air pocket, enabling him to stay under for longer. It's worth remembering that bit.

While the two talk they are watched by a group of unsavoury looking characters on rusty jet-skis (everything is rusty in Waterworld); the other sailor spots them & makes ready to leave, recognising them as Smokers, the film's antagonists. As he does so he reveals that he did board the Mariner's craft & steal his limes. Costner is torn between escape, revenge & retrieval of his glass jar, but his boat is so well crafted & fast that he's able to do all three. While getting away he runs his trimaran over the other boat, toppling its mast & leaving the lime thief to the Smokers.

Later, presumably 8 days later, the Mariner reaches the atoll, an impressively large circular fortress floating in the sea. It's in sets like this that the film's budget is so visibly on display. Blocked from getting in by the atoll's gatekeeper the Mariner reaches for the jar that he saved from the skirmish with the Smokers & shows what's inside: it's dirt, a valuable commodity in Waterworld.

The gatekeeper lets him in & he sails in to dock his craft. Whilst doing so he passes a funeral, in which a dead woman is tipped into a slimy substance, presumably to rot away into some form of compost.

The Mariner trades his dirt for what we can assume to be a substantial amount of "chits", such is its value, and walks to the nearby store.

Here we meet Nord, played by Northern Irish actor Gerard Murphy. He's being told by another character (credited as a "Hydroholic") that one of the children of the atoll has a map tattooed on her back, a map that leads to the mythical "dry land".

The Mariner orders a couple of glasses of "hydro" & a tomato plant from the bartender, Helen, played by Jeanne Tripplehorn, an actress who was ubiquitous in the 90s. While he's at the bar Nord sidles up to him to ask him for a glass of hydro (he refuses), offers to buy his boots (he refuses) then they both watch as Helen's young daughter Enola enters, the aforementioned tattoo on her back clearly visible.

After the Mariner rids himself of Nord - "why are you still talking to me?" - Helen asks him if he's seen dry land, to which he replies that, after 15 months at sea, he hasn't.

As the Mariner returns to his boat with what little supplies he has managed to get, he's approached by a number of villagers, asking him to impregnate a young girl. He refuses. This raises the suspicions of the villagers, who now suspect of him of being a Smoker spy. 

I'm not sure of the logic here, are the Smokers celibate? Or gay? It's not made clear. 

They attack him & find that he has gills behind his ears, signifying that he's a mutation, and explains why he was able to spend so long underwater earlier.

After a fight with some of the locals the resident lawman, The Enforcer, intervenes & arrests the Mariner for disturbing the peace, before imprisoning him in a cage.

Later that night Helen, Enola & an elderly villager named Gregor discuss how to interpret Enola's tattoos. Gregor suggests that the Mariner might know so goes to speak to him, whilst confirming that, as well as gills, Costner's character also has webbed toes, and rather poorly conceived, rubbery webbed toes at that.

The Mariner offers Gregor nothing and the next day he's found guilty of being a spy & sentenced to be lowered into the same gloop that the dead woman was tipped into earlier, for "recycling". The Enforcer apologises for this, making it clear to the Mariner that he had nothing to do with the decision.

While Costner, still in his cage, is being lowered into the slime a lookout spots a flotilla of Smokers approaching & sounds the alarm. They attack, and it becomes apparent that there was a Smoker spy in the atoll, but it was Nord, not the Mariner.

The Smokers' leader, the Deacon (Dennis Hopper, seemingly having the time of his life) barks instructions to his troops & they attack with machine guns, steer jet-skis over ramps & under the water into the atoll itself, even ramming the atoll's walls in kamikaze attacks. They kill many of the atoll-dwellers as they do, who can only respond with ineffective water cannons & the occasional fireball from a trebuchet.

An attack on Gregor's home has the effect of prematurely launching his hot air balloon. Gregor manages to climb aboard, but despite his best efforts to save them he leaves Helen & Enola behind. They then turn to the Mariner, still stuck in a cage partially submerged in slime, and offer to free him in return for him getting them to safety. He agrees and is freed from the cage. 

There follows a complex & really quite impressive series of stunts in which Costner uses various ropes & pulleys to get to his boat, opens the atoll's gates, kill a few dozen Smokers, rescue Helen & Enola, harpoon one of the Smoker gunboats & pulls it around so that it attacks its own, destroying the Deacon's command boat as he does, and get away.

During the battle the Deacon makes it clear that he despises sail boats; the heavy polluting, inefficient engines of the Smokers' crafts being more to his liking, and the reason for their name.

With the battle over the remaining Smokers take control of the atoll. As Nord commands all men to search for the tattooed girl the Deacon arrives, minus his left eye. They torture two captives into revealing that Enola left with "a muto", i.e. Costner's Mariner.  After promising that he wouldn't kill the man who revealed the whereabouts of the girl, the Deacon then gets Nord to do it for him, before joking that they need to "keep an eye out" for him. He's missing an eye, see?

Perhaps one of Waterworld's shortcomings is that Hopper's Deacon is quite a comical character. He cracks jokes throughout, and where he's meant to appear threatening he doesn't quite manage it. He's just not that malevolent, and his army of Smokers wouldn't look out of place in a slapstick comedy.

Waterworld is often compared to the Mad Max films (I've even done it myself here), but where those films had some truly terrifying villains, Deacon & the Smokers just don't seem that scary. Nord is probably the only truly villainous one of the group, as we'll see later.

On the his boat the Mariner is telling Helen that Enola has to go over the side as he doesn't have enough water & supplies for all three of them. Helen tries to reason with him, even to the point of stripping off & offering herself to him, which, like the offer to impregnate the girl in the atoll, he refuses, saying she has "nothing I need". Angry, Helen then turns his own harpoon gun on him. He drops a sail on her head & knocks her out, before continuing to sail away into the sunset.

I'm not sure how long days last in Waterworld, but the Mariner was to be executed at dawn. Now, after the battle at the atoll & a brief conversation on the boat, the sun is now setting. The day seemed to have lasted only a few hours at most.

At Smoker HQ (which is fully revealed later, in another impressive shot) we see the Deacon get fitted for a glass eye. His sycophantic men announce it looks great, so he turns to a boy for his opinion: "It looks shit", "It does look shit" says Deacon, and removes it, saying that children at least tell him the truth. Again, not very menacing. 

Another man arrives & says there's a problem "in the pit". Deacon, Nord & a few others get into a car, and with Henry Mancini's iconic Peter Gunn theme blaring they set off through what looks like a post-apocalyptic wasteland. You know the type, where people in rags huddle around bins that have been set ablaze.

On arriving at the pit, a deep fuel tank in which an elderly man is afloat in a small boat, taking depth measurements, they're informed that "the black stuff" is running low. Deacon tells the Smokers that no fuel burning is permitted, except when searching for the girl, the hunt for her is everything.

Back on the trimaran Enola is in trouble for decorating the boat, so the Mariner chucks her into the water. Helen screams that the girl can't swim, before diving in to save her. Coming to his senses, the Mariner stops the boat & circles back to rescue them. As he does so a plane flies overhead, piloted by a young, and virtually unrecognisable, Jack Black. 

As the plane attacks the Mariner goes down below to gather weapons, but, thinking he's deserted them, Helen again grabs the harpoon & fires, killing the machine-gunner, but causing the plane, now caught by the harpoon's rope, to fly around the boat in ever-decreasing circles, knocking out a mast and inflicting yet more damage.

The pilot leans out & shoots the rope, thereby freeing the plane & enabling him to make a getaway. Back on the boat the Mariner inspects the damage, and angrily chops off both Helen & Enola's hair with a machete. Why though? I'm not so sure. I'm not even sure what this is meant to symbolise about the Mariner's character, that he's just deeply unpleasant, perhaps?

With a report on their location from Jack Black's pilot, the Deacon & Nord discuss where the Mariner is likely to go. Once again, the conversation is comical, with "logic" akin to the infamous poisoned cup dialogue from The Princess Bride. The Deacon also refers to the Mariner as an "Icthydemon" during this conversation, one of a number of humorous fish-related names he comes up with during the film. "Gentleman Guppy" being another.

We jump back to the trimaran, and the Mariner has spotted another boat, piloted by a man credited as "The Drifter". Like Nord, this man is Irish, but from the Republic. It's good to know that hundreds of years after an apocalypse wipes out most of humanity that there will still be people speaking with regional Irish accents.

The Drifter is clearly quite mad, after years alone at sea, but he arranges to trade a few pages of a magazine with the Mariner for 30 minutes with Helen; like dirt, paper & reading material are clearly very valuable commodities here. The Mariner agrees, then immediately thinks better of this. As the Drifter & Helen go below decks on his boat, and he undresses to ready himself for 30 minutes with a disgusted Helen, the Mariner turns up to rescind on the deal. The Drifter is unimpressed with this, thinking that they had a deal, the two fight, and after a brief moment when it looks like the Drifter has won, it's then revealed that he's fatally wounded & dies. The Mariner pitches him overboard.

Helen & Enola go through the Drifter's belongings & find a fishing rod, which the Mariner immediately discards, preferring his own fishing technique: once underway he ties a rope to himself, pops a knife into his mouth, then jumps into the water allowing the boat to drag him. Within seconds a large sea creature emerges from the water & swallows him whole. The Mariner then kills the creature from the inside & we later see the three of them eating a feast of cooked mutated shark. Yum.

We also hear Enola sing a little ditty that is to have further meaning later in the film.

The Mariner tells Enola that he has never encountered someone who couldn't swim; which, it being Waterworld, is understandable. So, the next day the Mariner teaches Enola how to swim. Fortunately, and conveniently, at a time when the sea creatures are asleep. 

By the way, this whole scene goes on way too long. It's like they needed an excuse or reason to use their underwater cameras so went all in for about 20 minutes. It does, however, show us that the relationship between the three characters has now evolved into a friendship, albeit very, very quickly. Remember it's been less than 24 hours since he was pimping Helen for some pages of a magazine, and not too much longer that he was throwing Enola overboard & hacking at their hair with a machete.

Later, the trimaran approaches a stationary, floating platform, on which people can be seen waving. The Mariner calls out in the language of the seas: Portu-Greek (a nice touch that, a mixture of the languages of two historically significant sea-faring nations). When there is no response the trio's suspicions are aroused. Helen spots that the people are tied up & waving via a series of pulleys (like in Weekend at Bernies).

Meanwhile the Mariner tastes the water & finds traces of fuel. Using an inverted periscope-like device in the boat's hull he sees that a group of Smokers are on jet-skis under the water. It's a trap! The Deacon & the others are on the platform controlling the pulleys attached to the corpses of its inhabitants.

More nautical hi-jinks ensue as the Mariner lets loose his sails & they get away, but not before he's winged by a rifle shot from the Deacon.

While being tended to by Helen the Mariner admits that he has never seen dry land, and has no idea where he's taking them. She asks, if he hasn't been there, then why does he have so many strange things on his boat that suggest he has. She also offers a theory that people used to live on dry land, not on the water. Crazy talk, right?

The Mariner then takes her underwater in a diving bell, showing her stuff from our time, and a city, actually Denver, where even the mountains & ski fields are submerged. Despite being 500 years in the future, and long after after an apocalyptic flood, many of the things they find are remarkably well-preserved & recognisable.

Interestingly the Mariner uses flares to light the way as he pulls the diving bell under water. It's not explained how he managed to come by these. Even if he were to find them, I'm sure they would've corroded or become ineffective by this time, but he seems to have a plentiful supply.

When the two of them return to the boat they find that the Deacon & his Smokers have got there. The Mariner really should keep an eye out while he's underwater, he's only gone deep sea diving twice in the film so far, and each time he's been surprised by others when he's come back up.

Enola, presumably having kept a better lookout than the adults and seen the Smokers approach, has hidden, but reveals herself when the Deacon threatens to shoot Helen & the Mariner. They manage to escape by jumping overboard, but Enola is taken captive. While the Mariner keeps Helen alive underwater by breathing for them both the Smokers burn his boat & leave.

At Smoker HQ the Deacon interrogates Enola about her tattoo, and she announces to him & his crew that the Mariner will come for her.

Back on the remains of the trimaran Helen asks the Mariner why he refused sex with her when she offered. He admits that he knew she didn't want him, this leads to them kissing, then presumably having some mutant, fish-like sex which doesn't bear thinking about.

Afterwards, as they take stock of their situation & come to the realisation that they are likely to die on the boat Gregor arrives in his balloon, one of the worst examples of Deus ex Machina ever committed to film.

Gregor takes the pair to a new, smaller atoll where he & some of the other survivors of the earlier battle with the Smokers, including the sympathetic Enforcer, have set up home.

The group discuss the Smokers, Enola, the tattoo, and Gregor & the Mariner begin to piece together the tattoo's meaning. The Mariner takes a jet-ski & leaves, resolving to bring Enola back.

The Deacon and his men are studying Enola's tattoo, and cannot make any sense of it, one of the crew suggests cutting it out & stretching it over a frame to make it clearer, but again, as they're rather non-threatening villains, this is not followed through, luckily for Enola. When his men leave the Deacon toast a photo of a man on the wall and addresses him as "St. Joe".

As the Mariner approaches, we see the Smokers' HQ for the first time, it's the Exxon Valdez, of the infamous Alaskan oil spill of 1989; and "St. Joe" is the ship's captain of that time, Captain Joseph Hazelwood.

A sidenote: it was widely reported in the media at the time of the spill that Capt Hazelwood was an alcoholic, and was to blame for the accident. It has been suggested by people involved in the making of Waterworld that the Smokers' seemingly endless supply of booze & cigarettes is meant to be Hazelwood's personal supply, so large that there is still enough for the Smokers 500 years into the future.

The Deacon addresses the entire crew from the ship's bridge, there are hundreds of them. Again, the film's budget is right there on screen as hordes fill the deck of the rusting supertanker. The Deacon announces that "dry land is not just our destination, it is our destiny", a quote I remember well from the trailers. 

He then goes on to say that, once found, they will exploit the land by felling trees, damming rivers etc. and so on; proving that he hasn't learned from humanity's mistakes.

After whipping them up into a frenzy he urges them to man the oars, like a viking longboat, & row the Valdez to dry land despite none of them having quite worked out how to find it. 

Incidentally, despite the sheer numbers of Smokers present, using oars to move a ship the size of the Valdez has to be physically impossible, but then, that was maybe the plan, to just deceive the crew into believing they're making headway while they decipher the map.

Meanwhile the Mariner is making his way through the ship, killing Smokers indiscriminately. As he does, Enola tells stories of how he will take his vengeance on the Smokers to a disconcerted Nord, who sneaked away from the others in order to steal some whiskey. Nord, in response, becomes nasty & threatens to kill Enola.

With the crew below decks, only The Deacon & a few others, including Nord & Enola, remain on the bridge. The Mariner approaches on the ship's deck, when Enola excitedly recognises him & calls out.

The Deacon, seeing him, refers to him as "the turd that wont flush", then looks on in horror as he lights another of his flares & holds it over an opening leading to the fuel tanks. "I've come for the girl" he says, "she's my friend" - Aw!

The Deacon calls his bluff, saying that to drop the flare would kill them all, so... the Mariner drops it anyway. Way below, the elderly man who sits afloat the oil sees the flare & whispers "Thank God" as he, and the fuel, ignites.

There follows another cracking action sequence: lots of fire, explosions, and more aerial stunts. The Deacon attempts to make a getaway with Enola in the plane, only to be thwarted when the Mariner brings it down with a harpoon & grappling hook. We also see the end of the villainous Nord when he is shot by the Mariner. While this goes on the Smokers abandon ship in their droves.

The atoll-dwellers then show up in the balloon again (there's that handy Deus ex Machina), and lower a rope for the Mariner & Enola. The Deacon grabs hold too, but a timely intervention from Helen, throwing something hard & heavy at his head, knocks him off the rope. 

As the Valdez sinks the Deacon reaches a jet-ski, grabs a rifle, and shoots at the balloon, causing it to rock & Enola to fall into the water. The Deacon & some of his other men, also on jet-skis, converge on Enola (lucky she was taught how to swim, eh?), but are no match for a bungee-jumping Mariner who plucks her to safety as the Smokers crash into each other & their jet-skis explode.

Back on the balloon Gregor & the Mariner finally manage to interpret the markings on Enola's back & steer a course for dry land. If only the Mariner had agreed to pool resources with Gregor earlier, they could have already been safely ensconced on dry land by now.

After some time in the air a seagull lands on the balloon. Apart from the sea creature, this is the first wildlife we've seen in Waterworld, and the inference being that they're nearing dry land. As the clouds part (also the first we've seen in the film) a lush, green, mountainous island is sighted.

The group land & explore the island. They find fruit, birds, horses, fresh water, although its source is not fully explained, and a cave-dwelling with two skeletons inside, lying side-by-side. There's a small music box too, which, once played, plays the ditty that Enola was singing earlier in the film. Once she hears it Enola announces "I'm home".

The two skeletons are her parents (alluded to in the version I watched, although there is apparently an alternate version that makes this clear), who sent her away when they realised they were dying, but tattooed the coordinates of their location so she could find her way back once she was older.

I can't help but think she may have been safer fending for herself on the island, even though she was young, than cast adrift at sea, but who am I to argue with the inhabitants of a post-apocalyptic world?

Some time later the Mariner has built himself a new, wooden boat & makes ready to leave. There are some tears from Helen & Enola as he goes, but he has come to realise that his place is on the water (he is part-fish, after all). As Helen & Enola watch from a high point of the island he sets sail, cueing up a sequel that never eventuated.

According to IMDB there is another deleted scene showing the group discovering a plaque referencing the Hillary/Norgay conquest of Everest, thereby proving that dry land is, in fact, the top of that mountain. I like to think it was edited out because (to the best of my knowledge) no such plaque exists at the top of Everest, and the one they created had the British flag on it, not New Zealand's, the land of Hillary's birth, but it's probably more likely that the producers thought that audiences wouldn't understand the reference.

As mentioned earlier, Waterworld is nowhere near as bad as it's often perceived to be. It owes a massive debt to the Mad Max films, especially the second film in the series, with which it shares a lot of similarities. There are traces of its beginnings as a kids adventure film too, its original premise, with the comical Smokers & a lead role for a child. 

But, for all Waterworld's faults, it's a good, solid action film, and has an eco-message that, despite its implicitness, is not rammed home in a preachy manner. I recall that, despite the negative press, crowds did still turn up to watch it, not in huge numbers, but it got a respectable audience in the cinema I worked in.

Incidentally, the two Kevins, star Costner & director Reynolds, had a falling out during the making of the film, resulting in Reynolds leaving & Costner having to step in to the director's chair, although only Reynolds is credited as director. Having worked together frequently before Waterworld it would be another 17 years before the two would work together again.

The muted critical response & lack of a sequel didn't stop Costner from appearing as another Mad Max-style drifter without a name in a post-apocalyptic dystopia; a few years later he would make The Postman, an even less well-received film that made even less of an... um... splash than Waterworld.

Fin 

Tank Girl

One of the films I anticipated the most during my time as a projectionist was Tank Girl, Rachel Talalay's dystopian comedy based on the comic book creation of Jamie Hewlett & Alan Martin.

The trailers shown in the cinema leading up to its release promised a Mad Max-style romp with the added lure of a sassy lead, in Lori Petty, & a contemporary soundtrack featuring some of the era's biggest names (selected & co-ordinated by none other than Courtney Love).

When a new film was delivered to a cinema one of the first tasks for the projectionist was to splice the reels together into one giant reel of film - this being before digital, but after the days of a projectionist manning two projectors and switching one off & another on during reel changes - incidentally, for anyone that's wondered what the rough circle that flashes on the top right-hand side of the screen when watching any older film signifies: that's the cue for the projectionist to start the next reel on the other projector. The first circle appears a few seconds before the end of the reel, the second as the reel finishes.

Splicing films together was a long, drawn-out process involving running each reel manually through gloved hands onto a large platter, physically splicing the reels together with tape, and marking the join with a waxy, white pencil.
What was curious about Tank Girl was that, while doing this, I noticed long sequences of animated scenes; obvious to the projectionist as the film itself was suddenly brighter, more colourful.
This led me to believe that some of Hewlett's artwork would be featured throughout the film, which is the case, but with exceptions...

Tank Girl opens with credits over a sequence of Hewlett's aforementioned artwork, set to the tune of Devo's 'Girl U Want'; not the original, but the band doing a updated version of their own song, made to sound more like Soundgarden's cover.
Confused? Get used to it.

It's here we see that legendary Special Effects artist Stan Winston is credited with creating the Rippers, part of the comic's lore. Winston was so keen to work on the Rippers that he halved his fee so as to keep within the film's budget.


The film proper starts with desert scenes & a voice-over, Lori Petty's eponymous heroine, telling us that it's 2033, and the world has run out of water after a comet strike.

"Listen up, cause I'm only telling you this once. I'm not bedtime story lady, so pay attention. It's 2033. The world is *screwed* now. You see, a while ago this humongous comet came crashing into the earth. Bam, total devastation. End of the world as we know it. No celebrities, no cable TV, no water. It hasn't rained in 11 years. Now 20 people gotta squeeze inside the same bathtub - so it ain't all bad."

Tank Girl herself then appears in the desert, with flying helmet, goggles & other assorted paraphernalia, riding a buffalo. As you do.

She stumbles across a scene of devastation: some military types have come out second best after a battle.

There follows some further exposition, explaining what went down here: the Rippers (bloodthirsty mutants, created by Johnny Prophet) have attacked representatives of a company named Water & Power. TG then explains that W&P own all the water, but she & her friends steal from them.

TG collects a few artifacts including something that looks like a pétanque ball, but which contains spring loaded knives. It's the sort of thing Clive Barker might have thought up for one of his Hellraiser films.

TG & her buffalo then head home, a commune in a large Munsters-style house in the middle of nowhere. Here we meet our heroine's boyfriend, a ridiculously toned, perfectly-coiffured, white-teethed, good-looking guy that I feel would be unlikely to have access to all that he needs to maintain his looks in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
It's said that Hewlett & Martin agreed with a lot of Talalay's vision for the film, but all three clashed with the producers, who, I get the impression, may have insisted upon casting this guy.
We also meet Tank Girl's friend Sam, a young girl who couldn't be more like Newt from Aliens if she carried a disembodied doll's head.

We cut to the W&P HQ, where a group of Nazi-like officers are being toasted by their boss, Kesslee, Malcolm McDowell at his malevolent best.
Kesslee turns the toast into a bollocking, the subject of his rage being one of his senior W&P lackeys who has only secured "95% of the desert". After much smashing of glass & angry shouting Kesslee gets the unfortunate lackey to remove his boots & socks and walk across the broken glass, before then stabbing him with a water extraction device that dehydrates him as it fills.

Kesslee then promotes Sergeant Small, one of the other Nazi-like lackeys in the room, toasts him with the water extracted from his predecessor, and reveals that he too is walking barefoot in the broken glass.
Sharp-eyed viewers will have already noticed that McDowell had a pair of shiny black shoes on at the start of this scene.

Back at the Munster's commune Tank Girl, whom we've learned is named Rebecca, is on guard duty in a trench, but is being watched by unseen assailants.
Sam, the Newt-a-like, approaches TG & is gifted the deadly pétanque ball before returning to the house.
In the house, meanwhile, Tank Girl's boyfriend finds a pair of boots that she purloined from a dead W&P operative, together with a cryptic note saying "snip snip".
This transpires to be an invitation to join her in the trench where she'll remove her clothes with scissors, which she starts while presuming her boyfriend to be behind her. It is then revealed that the guy behind her is, in fact, a heavily-armed W&P trooper, in camo gear with night vision goggles, part of an assault team attacking the commune.

TG manages to kill the lurking trooper by stealing the pins from his grenades, causing him to explode, and launches a one-woman counter-attack on the other troops. In the ensuing battle she manages to dispatch a number of troops, but not before most of her commune, including her boyfriend, are slain.
TG & Newt-a-like are captured and placed on separate aircraft, TG ostensibly to be raped by the troops.
When one of the troops decides to make a move on TG, during the flight back to their base (and against the advice of his fellow troops, who probably feel a little uncomfortable about being in close proximity to a sexual assault), she manages to break his neck.
It's not then made clear why TG isn't killed at this point, but is instead taken to W&P's head honcho, Kesslee, & Sergeant Small, for interrogation & some bad poetry.

Kesslee, impressed at how TG has managed to kill so many of his men, offers her a job, which she declines in her own inimitable way, so is taken to work in a mine. A mine in which she & her fellow prisoners appear to be digging for buckets of dirt.

In an early role for Academy-nominated Australian actress Naomi Watts, it's here we now encounter Jet, or Jet Girl, a mousy, shy, bespectacled, greasy-haired mechanic found working on jet engines.

Jet is the subject of Sergeant Small's unpleasant and unwanted sexual advances, which Tank Girl helps to rebuff . In a film with so many far-fetched scenes it's this that's one of the most unlikely: TG intervenes when Small is harassing Jet, she kisses her & tells him to keep his hands off her. The creepy, lecherous Small is so appalled at this that he walks away in disgust. Really? He's appalled by this?

Later we see Tank Girl come out of hiding at the end of her shift, and spy a tank for the first time, to the tune of Isaac Hayes' Shaft.
She breaks in, but without the security code the tank locks automatically & releases cyanide gas. Jet is, somehow, on hand to break her out & explain that the tank isn't operational, which has saved her as the release of cyanide gas has malfunctioned.
There are a few scenes like this in this film: where peril dissipates instantly & a simple explanation is offered instead.
While TG & Jet discuss escape in the tank we see that Kesslee & Small are watching them on a screen. Here Kesslee utters one of the standout lines from the trailer: "My my, she'll be fun to break".

Small approaches Jet as she works on an actual jet, and tells her she's lost all flying privileges & access to the hangar, but somehow leaves her to continue her maintenance work on the aircraft she's in.
Jet is then seen crying in the toilet, before being consoled by Tank Girl with a wildly inappropriate incest quip.

'You gotta think about it like the first time you got laid. You just gotta say: "Daddy, are you sure this is right?"'

One of the W&P goons is on hand to drag TG away & she's placed in a strait-jacket, in a freezer. Kesslee again offers TG a job, TG again declines, and is taken to "The Pipe", a 40m downward sloping pipe that gets smaller toward the bottom. TG is thrown into this, head first, and in a sack, and starts to have visions of her boyfriend's death & Newt-a-like's kidnapping.

We cut to a W&P outpost that's been attacked by the Rippers. Small is there with Kesslee & informs him they believe the Rippers are attacking from underground subgates, to which Kesslee suggests he knows the perfect person to find them.
Back to "The Pipe". Weren't we only here a few seconds ago? Tank Girl is brought before Kesslee and we witness the start of the pair's "I win" banter. They go back to this throughout the film.
Tank Girl is taken to the scene of the earlier attack & told she's to walk into the subgate where she'll either be killed by a booby-trap, or come face-to-face with the Rippers.
"Either way, I win" says Kesslee.
Small fires a locating device into Tank Girl's leg, which displays her heart-rate on a monitor on Kesslee's wrist.
Before TG can get to the subgate the Rippers attack the W&P troops that have escorted them there.
From high above Jet hijacks an actual jet by ejecting the pilot, & she watches the attack take place.

Tank Girl escapes the onslaught by hiding behind a tank. She steps out once the Rippers have left & spots Kesslee's arm, with the heart monitor still attached. "What happened to the rest of you?!" she shouts as she stamps on it.

Jet lands her jet & tells Tank Girl that she's willing to escape with her, "You take the tank...".

Tank Girl's inability to control the tank results in her knocking out Jet with its gun, and here we get the first of the extended animated parts.

There are two schools of thought regarding these sequences: one was that the producers didn't like the finished film & so commissioned an animation studio to re-film parts on the cheap; the other is that they simply forgot to film scenes, and couldn't get Lori Petty & the rest back to film them.
I've also heard a theory that Petty had begun growing her hair for another role & wouldn't (or couldn't) shave it again.
Regardless of the reason for these animated sequences, they stick out like the proverbial sore thumb. They're cheap-looking, don't match the frequent snippets of Jamie Hewlett's artwork, and they totally disrupt the flow of the film.

Once the animated segment finishes we're back at W&P HQ, where an injured & masked Kesslee is being told by a doctor that he won't regain his eyesight, or re-grow his arm.
Small arrives with Che'tsai, a cybernetic expert with a strategy for restoring Kesslee to health, and kills the doctor, rather unnecessarily I thought, with Kesslee's stabby dehydrating water extraction device.

Tank Girl and Jet are now in an abandoned funfair, for no discernible reason. Here they meet Sub Girl (Ann, the "other" Cusack sibling), a regular from the comics, but vastly under-utilised here, in her one & only scene.

Sub has some of Newt-a-like's belongings & explains that she was taken to work in Liquid Silver in the town.

Realising they can't approach the town with a stolen W&P tank & jet they set about re-designing & modifying both.
Cue a montage scene spliced with more of Hewlett's artwork.

Back at W&P HQ Che'tsai uses a giant pair of scissors to remove Kesslee's head.


Jet & Tank Girl arrive at Liquid Silver where Newt-a-like is working in the laundry.

The place is a futuristic brothel, populated by the kind of women who staffed the moon base in Gerry Anderson's live-action, 70s TV show UFO, and run by Ann Magnuson of the band Bongwater.
The place looks like an abandoned shopping centre in Arizona, which is exactly what it is.

Ann of Bongwater is approached by one of her moon base girls, who says that a client wants "the schoolgirl experience... for real". Ann of Bongwater tells her to fetch Newt-a-like.

Meanwhile Tank Girl has broken into the Liquid Silver dressing room, where a computerised rendering of a woman (Dawn Robinson of the band En Vogue) gives instruction as to how to dress & prepare for a shift at the brothel.
Cue a clothing montage, the bane of many 90s films.
Dawn of En Vogue says that, if directions were followed, then Tank Girl should look like her. Needless to say, she doesn't.

Newt-a-like is now dressed like a schoolgirl & being led away by a creepy paedophile (Iggy Pop! The Iggy Pop!). She tricks him into taking "her silver", in reality the deadly pétanque ball, claps her hands, and the spring-loaded knives within impale his hand.
Newt-a-like delivers the line "That's what you get for being a perve!" & runs into Tank Girl.
Newly re-united, the two make their escape, but end up riding towards Ann from Bongwater on a crowded escalator - I mentioned this place looks like, and is, a shopping centre, right?
Ann from Bongwater spots Tank Girl, and, despite never having seen her before, seems to know exactly who she is.
Tank Girl captures Ann from Bongwater, and in yet another scene that defies explanation, but is nevertheless spectacular to watch, Tank Girl leads the cast in a rendition of Cole Porter's Let's Do It.
Somehow Jet reappears at this point; and, having no doubt also had some time in Dawn from En Vogue's dressing room, appears to be wearing something that's equal parts military uniform and plastic bag.

Somehow the noise of the singing interrupts Small. I'm not sure how this is possible, is W&P HQ in an office above the futuristic brothel? It's not made clear.
Small orders some of his troopers to "shut it down", and at gun point too - he's not the most understanding of bosses.
The troops attack Liquid Silver & again take Newt-a-like hostage, leaving Jet & TG to watch as she's flown away. If only they had a jet of their own...

We next see Newt-a-like chained up at W&P HQ... Hang on, so this isn't an office above the futuristic brothel?
Kesslee approaches and tells her that she's the bait in a trap to capture Tank Girl. We don't see what's become of his head at this point, but he has a robotic arm with tiny whirring blades attached.

Cut to the desert and Tank Girl & Jet are looking for the Rippers in an area that Sub Girl told them they could be found. With Sub Girl edited out of most of the film it's left to these moments of exposition to fill in where her scenes should have been.


The two fall into a subgate & come face-to-face with the Rippers, kangaroo/human hybrids that include amongst their number Ice-T.

The Rippers are somewhat suspicious of them, suspecting them to be spies, as they have W&P equipment.

There's some more sexual assault references:
"I say we kill 'em", "I say we hump 'em" etc. Surprisingly, for a film that's lauded as being very pro-feminist, there are a lot of these kind of "jokes".

More exposition about the Rippers follows, with one of them, Booga, a sweet-natured soul who takes a shine to TG, explaining that their creator, Johnny Prophet, made them to be the ultimate soldiers, before leaving to work on a device that could turn sea water into fresh water.
Now, I'm no science expert, but I'm pretty certain that processes for desalination have been around for quite some time. Anyway...

The Rippers hatch a plan for our two heroines to prove they're not spies, by sneaking up to a W&P outpost to confirm that a shipment of arms will be leaving it. TG & Jet go to the outpost, possibly the same one that the Rippers attacked earlier in the film, judging by the look of it, and confirm that the weapons are there. This is done via an elaborate set-up in which they trick the workers into believing they're posing for a calendar shoot.
Having confirmed that the weapons are there word comes back from the Rippers that they now want Tank Girl & Jet to steal them.

We now get a scene that's very derivative of the final chase in Mad Max 2, in which Tank Girl chases down a truck and dispatches each of the W&P operatives, without the assistance of Jet who has unexplained engine troubles so can't join the fight. This is not explained & I can only assume the reason for her non-involvement was for budgetary reasons

Having captured the weapons Tank Girl takes them back to the Rippers who explain they'll destroy them, not use them. Before doing so we get another extended dance scene, this time from the Rippers, which leads to what looks like Booga & Tank Girl in a post-coital embrace.
There were apparently plans to shoot a longer scene here, but again the producers intervened & said that they thought such a scene would alienate a prospective audience, and insisted on its removal.
So, they were fine with scenes of child abuse and alluding to rape & sexual assault, but a relationship between the protagonist & a kangaroo hybrid, despite it being an integral part of the comics?
No way.

The Rippers open the crates to find no weapons, but the decomposing body of Johnny Prophet instead. We know it's him because he wears a name tag.
The Rippers howl in despair, and away at W&P HQ, possibly the office above the brothel, possibly not, Kesslee is listening.
Again, we don't see his face, but see that he is no longer capable of drinking a glass of water...

Now newly galvanised & seeking vengeance, the Rippers plan an attack on W&P: they'll repaint Jet's jet back in its W&P livery, its second makeover so far, & fly in with her; while Tank Girl launches a one-woman ground assault, to the tune of Ice-T's Big Gun.
Jet & the Rippers land in the hanger and position themselves to attack, but somehow Kesslee is still listening in.
Kesslee puts Newt-a-like into "The Pipe", but this time begins filling it slowly with water. For a society where water is scarce, they seem to enjoy wasting it.

Tank Girl meets up with Jet & the Rippers, it's not explained how she gets into the hanger, or how she manages to find them, but, before they can start to attack, the Rippers reveal they can't fight in the light.
Some "ultimate soldiers" they turned out to be.

Their leader, Deetee, takes out the power supply, but is shot & killed for his trouble.
The Rippers start their mournful howling again, terrifying the Nazi-like troopers that have assembled nearby.
As with desalination, I'm no expert on kangaroos, but I'm pretty sure I don't recall ever hearing Skippy howling like a wolf whenever he needed to tell Liza Goddard that a small child was stuck in the billabong.

We now get to the battle, another scene that appears to have been let down when the studio pulled funding, this time for post-production. Throughout the fight we see really obvious wires strapped to both the Rippers as they jump, & the troops they fling around.

TG hears Newt-a-like crying for help, and goes to investigate. However, it's not her, but Kesslee doing some neat voice trick. He explains that he placed microphones in TG's body, and has been listening to her all the time. He then thanks her for leading the Rippers into his trap.
This doesn't explain how he managed to listen to Jet & the Rippers while TG wasn't with them, but let's gloss over that.

They fight, and Kesslee, thanks to him using his own robotic arm to cut the supports on the raised walkway they're on, falls & gets trapped when the aforementioned arm is jammed into a big cog.
TG moves in to punch him and it's here it's revealed why Che'tsai severed his head; Kesslee's entire head is a hologram. I'm not sure how he's still capable of independent thought without a head, maybe his brain was uploaded to a server, or something. It's not explained.

Kesslee frees himself to continue the fight, and manages to pin TG down to resume their "I won" dialogue:
"Say 'I won'"
"I won!"
"No! Say 'I WON!!'"
"I WON!!" etc. and so on.

Tank Girl's tank then appears, crashing through a wall & pinning Kesslee to a conveniently placed electric fence with that cumbersome robotic arm of his. Honestly, I don't know why he bothered with it, it's more trouble than it's worth.

Now, during the earlier montage of artwork, the one that came about when Jet & Tank Girl modified their respective vehicles, there's the briefest of shots where we see TG place a human brain inside the tank.
It's never clear whose brain it is, where she got it from, or how she installed it, but it seems that, as with so many other aspects of this film, it's another vital piece of info that got lost in the final cut.

The tank is clearly able to think & act for itself, and nowhere more clearly than in this scene.
As TG implores the tank to finish off Kesslee, it lowers its gun and sort of shakes its turret. She then asks if it's out of ammunition and it nods its turret in confirmation.

With no ammo, Tank Girl jumps into the tank & resorts to firing beer bottles at Kesslee (how are they still making beer during a water shortage? Doesn't beer use something like 20 litres of water to make 1 litre of beer?)
One of the beer bottles hits a large bucket of water above Kesslee's head, tipping it over him and causing him to short-circuit. TG picks up his stabby water extraction device, and, despite having not seen it in use at any point of the film up to here, uses it to kill him.
Here she delivers one of my favourite lines of the film; as Kesslee dehydrates and his hologram head distorts she asks "Did I hurt you yet?"
TG then races off to rescue Newt-a-like from "The Pipe", and just in time.

Meanwhile, Sgt Small, who abandoned his post as soon as the battle commenced, is attempting to make a getaway by stealing a jet, when he's confronted by Jet herself.

Jet has now totally transformed from the nervous, bespectacled, greasy-haired mechanic we met at the start of the film, to a confident, lip-glossed, stylish vamp (with perfect eyesight), and a cold-blooded killer.

She shoots Small & does that trick where she blows away the smoke from her gun.

As TG and Newt-a-like make their own getaway they're approached by a group of W&P troopers who point their guns at them & make them get on their knees. As TG turns to Newt-a-like & says "See you in the next world" Booga appears to reveal that he's taken command of these troops & has taken the bullets from their gun.
So, if they've been taken prisoner, why are they still roaming about, pointing their weapons & barking commands at allies of the Rippers? another moment where danger & peril is removed with a cursory, throwaway line

The final part of the film is yet another of those cheaply animated sequences, where all of W&P's water is unleashed, causing rivers to re-flow, rain to fall, and all is suddenly right with the world.
Apparently Sub Girl (and her sub) was meant to make an appearance here, assisting in the final attack on W&P, & releasing the water, but her scenes were either cut or never filmed. This may explain why the end of the film is so confusing.

It's a sad finale to what could've been a great film had Talalay, Hewlett & Martin been given free rein to realise their vision.

While the world falls head-over-heels for post-apocalyptic, dystopian films featuring strong female leads (Hunger Games, Divergent, Mortal Engines, How I Live Now, The 5th Wave, Mad Max: Fury Road and so on) Tank Girl, possibly one of the first, if not the first of the genre, has often been overlooked, ignored, unappreciated, or just plain forgotten about.
But, as I write, there are rumours that another Academy-nominated Australian actress, Margot Robbie, is looking to produce & star in a reboot of the film (which would basically be her reprising her Harley Quinn character, surely?).

I like to think that the original ending of the film & the numerous parts that were edited out are still in existence somewhere, and they would definitely be interesting to see; this is one film that's just crying out for a Director's Cut.

Fin