Movie Review : Crank 2 : High Voltage (2009)

•Genre: Action/Adventure
•Running Time: 85 min.
•MPAA Rating: R
•Director: Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor
•Writer: Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor
•Cast: Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Efren Ramirez, Bai Ling, David Carradine, Reno Wilson, Joseph Julian Soria, Dwight Yoakam

Synopsis

Picking up immediately where the first movie left off, "Crank High Voltage" finds Chev Chelios surviving the climactic plunge to his most certain death on the streets of Los Angeles, only to be kidnapped by a mysterious Chinese mobster. Three months later, Chev wakes up to discover his nearly indestructible heart has been surgically removed and replaced with a battery-operated ticker that requires regular jolts of electricity in order to work. After a dangerous escape from his captors, Chev is on the run again, this time from the charismatic Mexican gang boss El Huron, and the Chinese Triads, headed by the dangerous 100 year-old elder Poon Dong. Once again turning to Doc Miles for medical advice, receiving help from his friend Kaylo's twin brother Venus, and re-connecting with his girlfriend Eve, who is no longer in the dark about what he does for a living, Chev is determined to get his real heart back and wreak vengeance on whoever stole it, embarking on an electrifying chase through Los Angeles where anything goes to stay alive.

Movie Review

Crank 2: High Voltage

He Might Lack a Ticker, but He’s Still a Time Bomb

“Morally bankrupt” doesn’t come close. This is a film that replaces plot with gratuitous violence, character with gratuitous sex / nudity, and theme with a stripper getting her implants punctured in a gunfight. There’s wince-inducing self-harm, and it may contain scenes of mild peril. Thank god it’s also endlessly entertaining and one of the funniest films of the year.

The action – a term we use advisedly – picks up exactly where the first film left off, with our hero Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) smashing to earth in an apparently lifeless heap. We see him scraped off the pavement with a snow shovel and bundled into a van, thence to have his heart removed and replaced with an electrical model not designed for heavy use. So for him to, say, race through LA, have public sex on a racetrack, slam bad guys through walls or stick oiled shotguns in places they really shouldn’t be stuck, he’s going to need regular electric shocks to keep him going. Cue Statham juicing himself up with jump leads, grabbing power cables with both hands and in extremis rubbing himself up against polyester-sporting little old ladies.

In short, it’s hard to see where the action genre goes from this franchise, with demented writer-directors Neveldine and Taylor cranking volume, pace and the power lines up to 11. For all Michael Bay’s rust-coloured sunsets and giant robots, even he has always stopped short of having a character slice his own nipples off, or reanimating a severed head. It’s testament to the absurdity of this franchise that a dreamlike sequence where a papier-mache headed, Godzilla-sized Statham beats up a bad guy in a model city seems like one of the film’s more realistic moments.

But Crank knows its own limitations, using John de Lancie’s newsreader for a couple of wry asides and keeping tongue firmly in cheek. Statham’s relentless deadpannery and Cockerney rhyming slang (“Where the fuck is my strawberry tart?”) provide a solid focus, with Amy Smart’s dim-bulb girlfriend once again offering supporting laughs. Neveldine and Taylor slip up with some supporting characters – Bai Ling’s Ria is this film’s JarJar, Corey Haim is largely pointless and a Chelios childhood flashback suffers from appalling accent work – and rely too heavily on casual racism and the entertainment power of boobies, but when they focus on mayhem they’re unbeatable.

It has taken only three years for Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) to end his long fall from a helicopter at the end of “Crank.” Waiting for him at a busy Los Angeles intersection are a bunch of Chinese mobsters, who shovel the hit man off the street, remove his heart and substitute a machine. Without constant recharging, Chev — and the “Crank” franchise — will die.

Like its predecessor, “Crank: High Voltage,” the latest abomination from Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, is boorish, bigoted and borderline pornographic. As Chev charges around town searching for his stolen organ — juicing himself with jumper cables, a Taser and a bout of old-lady frottage — the plot vigorously abuses Mexicans, Asians, women and the disabled with equal-opportunity glee.

Bearing the brunt of the punishment is Chev’s pole-dancing girlfriend (Amy Smart) and a besotted Asian hooker (Bai Ling); apparently Chev’s resemblance to a rutting bull is not limited to his neck and personality.

Fans of the original (and you are out there) will be thrilled to discover that the director of photography, Brandon Trost, seems confused about the meaning of the term “private parts” and that the filmmakers are still resisting maturity. “Isn’t everybody looking for their heart?” Mr. Neveldine asks in the press notes. On this evidence, it seems unlikely.“Crank: High Voltage” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Nipples are sliced, breast implants pierced and horses frightened.

CREDIT : MRQE SITE