Word: talalay
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1995-1995
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Directed by Rachel Talalay starring Lori Petty, Naomi Watts and Malcolm McDowell playing at Sony Fresh Pond...
When Tank Girl went Hollywood, some compromises were necessary. But director Rachel Talalay, who produced "Cry Baby" and "Hairspray" for darling weirdo John Waters, and sharpened her directorial talons with the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series, energetically faces the challenge of fleshing out "Tank Girl...
...Talalay succeeds in capturing the colorful, playful nature of a comic strip. The scenes come fast and funny, and aren't bound by the conventional live-action restraint of continuity. In the course of the film, Tank Girl wears dozens of different get-ups, the work of brilliant costume designer Arianne Phillips, which are sure to inspire suburban pre-teens across the land...
...that Talalay seems obliged to package these scenes of glorious heat lightning in the same ol', same ol', bad guy/good guy, action-movie plot. Although spoofing the conventional action movie is hardly original, Talalay's failure to comment on or corrupt the form seems naive, and betrays Tank Girl, forcing upon her the burden of morals. It's ironic that the three dimensional characters of the comic book become flat, at least in their simplistic division between good and evil, in the medium of film...
Although the plot skeleton is ancient and predictable, the flesh of the movie is as firm and bouncy as Tank Girl's own. Talalay effectively juxtaposes the live action with short segments of animation, computerized effects, puppet animation and arty close-ups of Hewlett's drawings which rightly communicate the KAPOW! of comics. There is an extravagant Busby Berkeley dance number to Cole Porter's "Let's Fall in Love," and several other scenes totally unnecessary to the plot. It is these scenes which make the movie great...