Cargo Ship: Tank Girl and her tank... and her alcohol. In one storyline, she bears the tank's child, and with all the alcohol involved that encounter counts as a threesome.
Base-Breaking Character: Tank Girl herself, as portrayed by Lori Petty. Most find her bitchiness grating and unpleasant, while others (namely Siskel and Ebert) praised her comic timing as the movie's only saving grace.
Complete Monster: In this film based on the comic, Kesslee is the head of Water & Power, a tyrannical MegaCorp holding a monopoly on a post-apocalyptic world's water. Happily condemning the rest of the world's populace to die of thirst, Kesslee demonstrates his cruelty by forcing a failed minion of his to walk on broken glass before sucking out all the water in his body and drinking it. Ordering a massacre of peaceful farmers for stealing water, Kesslee captures the two survivors— Rebecca, the titular Tank Girl, and her young companion Sam— and, fascinated by Rebecca's fighting prowess, begins to break her down through a series of sadistic, prolonged tortures to convince her to work for him. After a failed attempt to break into a Ripper hideout leaves him mortally wounded, Kesslee restyles himself as a cyborg—thanking the doctor who initially attempted to heal him by murdering her—Kesslee leads an attack on the Rippers' nightclub and threatens to drown Sam in front of Rebecca as one last ploy to control her. Establishing slave labor for his own benefit and allowing his guards free rein to commit more atrocities, Kesslee thoroughly proves himself the worst in a dog-eat-dog world.
Critical Backlash: The film was trashed by critics and disowned by the creators of the original comics, yet it has a cult fandom. While nobody is going to call this movie a masterpiece, there are plenty of viewers who are more forgiving of its glaring flaws and even feel that a lot of things about it either work better than most give them credit for or could have worked had the overall film been stronger.
Ham and Cheese: Everyone knows how silly the thing is and has a ball.
Harsher in Hindsight: A movie about the world becoming an apocalyptic wasteland as a result of running out of water seems a lot less fun in a more climate change-conscious world, where one of the biggest concerns is the planet running out of fresh water.
The movie itself comes off as a screwball version of Mad Max: Fury Road due to having an overlapping premise with the later film: Action Girl who's good with vehicles saves the world from a dictatorship run by water-hoarding assholes.
Les Yay: Tank Girl and Jet Girl, mostly on Tank Girl's part.
Nightmare Fuel: The scene where Kesslee first uses his water draining device to suck one of his goons dry of water, and then proceeds to drink said water.
Suspiciously Similar Song: As a direct reference to Shaft, the music that plays when Rebecca sneaks around a garage and finds her tank sounds very similar to the Shaft theme song.
Vindicated by History: Critics weren't kind to the film during its release, with the consensus being that it's shallow, annoying, and far exceeds its ambition, with only a scant few highlights. However, the film has endured with a cult fandom, and starting from the mid-2010's, critical reevaluation has become a lot more favorable, with modern reviews still acknowledging that it's tremendously flawed, but with increased praise towards its apunkalyptic visuals, soundtrack, and gloriously silly acting, including Lori Petty's take on the titular character. One particular talking point is the fact that it's a surprisingly strong Feminist Fantasy — Tank Girl is unabashedly sex-positive and antidisestablishmentarian, subverts, dismantles, and laughs at several misogynistic stereotypes and villainy, and is overall in control enough that she never feels like a "victim" even as she suffers — with some critics arguing that the film was ahead of its time in terms of depicting feminist-skewing Hollywood action of the 2010's and beyond. The most obvious comparison is Mad Max: Fury Road, a much more critically and commercially successful apunkalypse action film with a similarly progressive slant.
What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Reputedly. Although anybody who expected the film to be child-friendly had obviously never heard of the original comics.
, by Devo.