Movie Review – Crank: High Voltage (Mini Review)
Violent, fatally flawed and desperately filmed, Crank 2 manages to raise the bar on an already implausible film concept and deliver a shocking, amusing action flick that delivers everything the tag line says it does. Statham is ice-cold as always, Amy Smart as sexy as hell, and the characters encountered as creepy and slimy (and badly written) as ever: the team of Neveldene and Taylor have delivered the film equivalent of a sexual assault. I must warn you that this film is not for everyone… especially those of you who hoped for a more enlightening film experience.
– Summary –
Director : Neveldene/Taylor
Year Of Release : 2009
Principal Cast : Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Clifton Collins, Jr., Efren Ramirez, Bai Ling, David Carradine, Dwight Yoakam.
Synopsis: Chev Chelios miraculously survives his plummet of death from film 1, and has his heart stolen for use by an Asian gangster – Chelios’ own heart is replaced by an electrically operated one, and one that requires charging all the time. As he searches desperately for his actual heart, Chelios has to avoid various nefarious types also seeking to capture him.
What we think : Violent, fatally flawed and desperately filmed, Crank 2 manages to raise the bar on an already implausible film concept and deliver a shocking, amusing action flick that delivers everything the tag line says it does. Statham is ice-cold as always, Amy Smart as sexy as hell, and the characters encountered as creepy and slimy (and badly written) as ever: the team of Neveldene and Taylor have delivered the film equivalent of a sexual assault. I must warn you that this film is not for everyone… especially those of you who hoped for a more enlightening film experience.
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Just Quickly
Considering that the original Crank was a pretty far-out adrenaline rush of a film, saying that Crank: High Voltage goes even further into insanity is like saying insane people are pretty damn normal. Crank 2, reuniting the directing team of Mark Neveldene and Brian Taylor, as well as original star Statham, Amy Smart and a bunch of other cameo appearances, is a barely comprehensible series of misadventures and violence, almost like A Clockwork Orange on speed. Inexplicably, Chev Chelios (Statham) survived his fall from the plane at the end of the first film, and finds himself scooped up by some nasty Asians, and taken to a surgery where his heart is removed and replaced with an electrical artificial one. Escaping the surgery (of course), Chelios soon learns that in order to stay alive, he must keep himself electrified by any means – static, car batteries, direct current, even the local power plant are ways in which he can keep his fake heart pumping, until he can retrieve his original and have it reinserted. Sound crazy? Throw in a crazy Asian hooker, some porn stars, a sex-scene at a horse-race and a bunch of violent Asian and Mexican gangs, and you have the makings of an instant classic, right? No, you don’t. Crank 2 is filmed, edited and slapped together by two directors who have all the hallmarks of ADHD. There’s no pause for a breath whatsoever, and after a while, there’s only so much you’re able to take in before your brain automatically switches to “off” and starts thinking about better ways to spend your time.
The Result
Regardless of your penchant for, and tolerance of, hyper-violent, overly sexualised Hollywood cinema, Crank 2 slots nicely into the mould and does a “great” job keeping you entertained. There’s nudity, sex, a man with a shotgun up his ass, a horse cock, shoot-outs, stunts, crazy surgery and some of the stupidest Asian dialogue ever written for a mainstream film. If you can call Crank 2 “mainstream”, that is. And yes, I did say “horse cock”, you’re not reading that wrong. Crank 2 is lowest-common-denominator material – base, violent rage against viewers of all kinds: especially women. Crank 2 is a film aimed squarely at teenage boys who are too young to watch it: they’re the kind who sneak into the cinema when the ticket-checker isn’t watching, just to see titties. The story is buried beneath an avalanche of sound and fury, a non-stop threshing machine of a film whose sole job is to either make you vomit from motion sickness or grimace as the sickening carnage unfolds. There’s no redeeming quality to this film whatsoever, at least, none that I could see. It’s entertaining purely as a piece of garbage, the kind of film made like an endless MTV-style video featuring some air pollution people have the nerve to call “music”. You kinda get the feeling that the boys watched Crank, thought about just how much more crazy they could make it, and got funding. It’s the wildest ride I’ve seen in a while, and although it doesn’t elevate the conscious mind to new heights of enlightenment, is exactly the kind of film you should watch were to you contemplate committing murder.It even step over the boundaries of good taste by having a floating head in a tank communicate with Chelios via subtitles. Groan.
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