Rating: D-
Dir: Rachel Talalay
Star: Lori Petty, Ice-T, Naomi Watts, Don Harvey
[22] “How to make a crisis out of a drama.” I expected to hate this, but I didn’t. Well, not as much as expected. It remains, however, a textbook example of prime, sliced, comic-book turkey: alienate the fans by holding fake auditions for the already cast title role, remove the subversion which was the original’s main appeal, then confuse everyone else by hurling animation, strip montages and full-scale musical numbers into a post-apocalyptic action movie.
The result is a mess; the main surprise, given original source material that’s a hodgepodge of new-lad feminism and pulp SF, is that it holds up to almost half-way, though boorish behaviour isn’t amusing or endearing simply ‘cos it’s done by a chick having a bad hair day. Then the Rippers show up, mutant kangaroos with foam ears who are the dumbest monsters I’ve seen for a long time – Stan Winston should be ashamed, and at least Ice T looks suitably embarrassed. From this point on, the film rapidly self-destructs and ceases to be of interest.