Actually I kind of like this movie but it is definitely a bad one. They certainly couldn't have picked a better Tank Girl than Lori Petty who basically took the look into her real life after filming and I don't believe we have seen much of her in the 15 years since. Based on the comic of the same name, the movie plays out much like an actual comic book would but unfortunately lacked the budget that the material deserved. Now to the important stuff: the soundtrack. After the huge bust out success of The Crow soundtrack the year before, Tank Girl offered up stiff competition with an eclectic mix of tracks from some of 1995's brightest artists. Bjork, Hole, Bush, Portishead, L7, Belly, Veruca Salt and Ice-T (who also acted in the film) and all contributed to the collaboration with outstanding results. But if that wasn't enough: Devo added an updated version of their famous 80's tune Girl U Want, Joan Jett and Paul Westerberg did a remake of a Cole Porter tune called Lets Do It, The Magnificent Bastards (Scott Weilands STP side project) debuted a new tune called Mockingbird Girl and the theater group Stomp joined in with an instrumental to lead off the album. What sticks out to me still is that there is not a throwaway tune in the bunch and all significantly add to the feel of the movie. I remember buying the cd a couple of weeks before seeing the movie and after the first listen wondering who that group Bush was. Their entry was a tune called Bomb, and for me a real standout, so much so that I immediately searched out their first record. It was a mere few months before Bush became a huge hit on MTV and I was excited to get more of a taste for their music since the aforementioned track was so damn good. Not that I was completely disappointed but lets just say the rest of the album sounded completely different and not exactly what I was looking for. You win some, you lose some. The soundtrack also got me into Bjork who I had pretty much ignored up until that point, but when I first heard Army of Me I was astounded. This woman with an amazing voice singing over this music that was loud, angry and unique...just simply one of those wow moments that I look back on and say...wow. I can certainly think of a lot of great movies with amazing soundtracks where the film and the songs go hand in hand (Apocalypse Now, The Matrix, Fight Club, Pulp Fiction, Titanic...just kidding), but I can not think of another film where the disparity between bad film and great soundtrack is so huge.
Some of the amazing art of the comic by Jamie Hewlett
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