Salt Lake Film Society Summer Showdown: Hackers vs Tank Girl

It’s been feeling a lot like the end of history lately. The weight of climate collapse and rampant warfare colors every movie I see these days, making me yearn for times I never got to see, while thinking about all of the people who have lived before me. Fortunately, this weekend gave me the chance to travel to 1995 in all its grungy, techno glory — and find a surprising amount of relatability in two cult classic films, both new to me.

Hackers follows Dade Murphy, aka Zero Cool aka Crash Override (Jonny Lee Miller, Trainspotting), 11 years after his first brush with the law due to his incredible hacking. He’s the new kid at school, a place where he quickly finds himself amongst fellow hackers “Phantom Phreak” (Renoly Santiago, Con-Air), “Cereal Killer” (Matthew Lillard, Scream) and Kate, aka “Acid Rain” (Angelina Jolie, Girl, Interrupted), among others. After one of their own accidentally meddles in the money-grabbing schemes of Ellingson Mineral’s villainous computer security advisor, all of them are pursued by the forces of both corporate America and the misinformed U.S. Secret Service.

The plotting can certainly be dense at times, but the over-the-top costuming, a score that’s aged like wine, dated and dazzling computer effects and an overall sense of camp and wonder mean you’re always entertained. The third act in particular suffers under the complicated plot, as “The Plague” (Fisher Stevens looking like Ringo Starr circa 1981) brings to fruition his framing of the teen hackers as the thieves. Dade and Kate score the support of hackers all over the world in an all-out attack on Ellingson Mineral’s computer systems, leading to an awful lot of typing for our big climax. Creative directing choices by Iain Softley (Backbeat) still manage to make it exciting, like spinning the phone booths our main characters are standing in and swooping the camera around the inside of the interface. Is it how computers actually work? Definitely not. Did I care? Not at all.

Honestly, the film’s portrayal of computers as a borderline mystical art is one of its greatest strengths. Purple amorphous clouds and strange neon symbols, circuitry cities with bolts of light shooting through the sky — this is the language of Hackers, and it was absolutely mesmerizing on the big screen.

Set in a post-apocalyptic 2033 and based on the British comic of the same name, Rachel Talalay (Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare)’s film Tank Girl follows the high energy jokester antihero (Lori Petty, A League of Their Own) as she fights to save her young friend Sam from the clutches of Water & Power, the corporate overlords that control all of the water in her drought-ridden landscape. In her quest for her and Sam’s freedom, she joins forces with Jet Girl, an engineer played by Naomi Watts (Mulholland Drive), and a mob of kangaroo-human hybrids led by Ice-T in full prosthetic make-up. Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange) brings a lot of menace to his role as Kesslee, the CEO with a habit of draining people’s water from their body… and then drinking it. Brutal.

The first half is fine enough, culminating in a grand musical number in which they perform “Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall In Love” by Cole Porter for the pure sake of zaniness. Things really fly off the rails when Tank Girl and Jet Girl meet the aforementioned kangaroo mutants, who were a little too horny for my liking, but the final battle is all in all successful. Sam is saved, Jet Girl kills her workplace abuser and Tank Girl dehydrates the cyborg Kesslee, then makes out with one of the kangaroo men.

The film’s style admirably predicates itself on panels, recreations and stylistic animation pulled directly from the pages of the comic. Unfortunately, these lively transitions tend to break up the flow of the edit. Similarly, Tank Girl’s Deadpool-esque quips (while certainly ahead of their time) begin and end with too much dead air on either side, killing the pace of every scene. It’s a comedic timing nightmare, never quite managing to fire with enough gusto to be fun. Still, it has its moments especially in regard to production design.

At a time when my hate for corporations and fear of mass casualties are all at an all-time high, I regularly walk the line between seeking escapism and demanding recognition of our reality. Both Hackers and Tank Girl, while certainly not rooted in reality, present stories of underdogs in technocratic capitalist-run societies fighting for power and the freedom to live how they want to live. I never would have guessed I’d feel so inspired by a couple of divisive genre films from 30 years ago, but hey, that’s the kind of joy you find when you check out what’s playing at your local indie cinema. —Max Bennion

Read more about this year’s SLFS Summer Showdowns:
Salt Lake Film Society Summer Showdown: Pee-wee’s Big Adventure vs The Mask
Salt Lake Film Society Summer Showdown: Phenomena vs The Last Unicorn

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