Tank Girl – Memphis Flyer

This mild spring day is perfect weather for the drive-in. Fortunately, the Time Warp’s got you covered!

The theme is Comic Book Hardcore, but the first item on tonight’s program is the official premiere of episode 1 of Waif, the sci-fi serial directed by Time Warp Drive In co-host Mike McCarthy. Waif is the story of an alien stowaway, played by Meghan Prewitt, who finds herself stranded on future Earth. The sci fi serial form is perfectly suited to McCarthy’s pulpy sensibilities, and the the space-based special effects by Raffe Murray in the opening episode have a pleasing hint of the 70s BBC shops that produced classic Doctor Who and The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.

Waif

2005’s Sin City saw OG indie auteur Robert Rodriguez’s most significant contribution to the comic book movie genre. Rodriguez, in collaboration with famed Batman artist Frank Miller, abandoned photorealism entirely and created a dark, stylized world where Miller’s hardboiled characters and over-the-top femme fatales fit right in. It’s too bad the sequel, 2014’s A Dame To Kill For, was so godawful, because this is one of the greatest visual masterpieces of 21st century filmmaking, and a perfect drive-in feature.

Sin City

Next up is an early entry into the comic book movie sweepstakes, the 1994 adaptation of The Crow, based on the underground comic by James O’Barr. The film is infamous not so much for what happens onscreen as what happened offscreen: Its star, Brandon Lee, son of martial arts legend Bruce Lee, was killed in a still-mysterious on-set accident eight days prior to filming wrap. Viewed from a distance of 22 years, Lee’s performance has a brooding charisma that inspires all sorts of might-have-beens, and the film looks like the blueprint for the DC grimdark philosophy of superhero films.

The Crow

1995’s Tank Girl is an infamous flop that destroyed careers and poisoned the reputation one of the few girl power comics on the scene in the 1990s. Lori Petty stars as the titular Tank Girl, who roams the post-apocalyptic world not so much like Furiosa as like Mad Max if he were played by Gewn Stephanie. It’s also notable for being one of the stranger roles rapper turned TV cop drama regular Ice-T has had, as he appears as a sentient marsupial mutant named T-Saint. The years have been kind to this film, imbuing it with a sense of trashy fun. Like Repo Man, it finds its salvation in a good soundtrack and some now-classic fashion.

Tank Girl

The final film on the docket is Blade, another 1990s comic book film that looks better in retrospect than it did a the time. It stars Wesley Snipes in a career-making turn as a sword-slinging vampire hunter. In this origin story, Blade, a half-human whose mother was bitten by a vampire while he was in the womb, faces off against the great character actor Stephen Dorff as a vamp set on world domination. It’s got enough stylish vampire decapitations to keep you awake into the wee hours of the drive-in.

Blade

For films and literature about dystopian societies, there’s no better setting than England (Nineteen Eighty-Four, Children of Men, Never Let Me Go, Brave New World, A Clockwork Orange, V for Vendetta…). But when it comes to post-apocalyptic locations, the place to (not) be is Australia (on the strength of Mad Max and The Road Warrior and even Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome alone, not to mention the classic On the Beach and Tank Girl). Perhaps it’s the way Australia already seems like a post-apocalyptic place, with its natural wasteland scenery of the Outback, its racially and ethnically troubled society, and its mondo-poisonous animal kingdom. Plus, the events of the pre-apocalyptic film The Last Wave could take place tomorrow, and it wouldn’t be a bit surprising.

Add The Rover to the antipodean eschatological list. The film, starring Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson, takes place Down Under “ten years after the collapse.” Eric (Pearce) goes into a way station in the middle of nowhere to get something to drink. A group of outlaws (Scoot McNairy, David Field, and Tawanda Manyimo), on the run from a violent robbery, wreck their truck and steal Eric’s car. Eric, desperate to recover his car for unknown reasons, goes in hot pursuit. A man the criminals left behind for dead, Rey (Pattinson), is grievously injured but goes on the chase as well. Eric and Rey find common purpose but have disparate agendas.

The script (David Michôd and Joel Edgerton) is assembled in deliberate, stripped-down fashion. Each plot thread comes together slowly but surely. The film drives right into the story, then explains its world slowly and only partly. Brief bouts of dialog punctuate long stretches of silence. As director, Michôd’s long takes consider the land and the survivors’ place in it. Antony Partos’ spare, foreboding, primal score takes up instruments seemingly one at a time: percussion, piano, euphonium, bass, tin whistle.

Post-apocalyptic Australia, with car chases over endless, uninhabited highways, concern over the price of petrol, a plot fueled by vengeance, a violent, once-civilized loner you root for in spite of yourself: No, it’s not one of George Miller’s Mad Max films, though there’s no reason you couldn’t pretend it’s an unacknowledged prequel. That said, The Rover is more Mad Max than The Road Warrior. The harsh action is closer to the brutality of the original than the gonzo sequences from its sequel. (And, it must be noted, Eric drives a sedan, not a DIY armored supercharger.) Emotionally, too, The Rover mimics the existential angst of Mad Max.

In fact, The Rover may be the most depressing, black-mooded film seen in some time. I think I recall one moment of levity, in the first five minutes, before the shape of the movie came into focus. Michôd and company challenge you to keep pulling for Eric amid his relentless, Ahabian quest for his car. He takes no prisoners who don’t serve his purpose. You’ll pull for him because we are inculcated to cheer for the protagonist. But The Rover, when all is said and done, retroactively positions Eric less antihero and more … well, someone both more and less sympathetic than he appeared.

The script paints the mourning at the core of The Rover, and cinematographer Natasha Braier proves the point: Eric and Rey, after the fall, face to face in a dry and waterless place. “If you don’t learn to fight, your death is going to come real soon,” Eric warns Rey. Hilarious!