He was dead…but then he got better.
Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor will never be confused with other dynamic directorial duos like the Coen Brothers. The films of Neveldine/Taylor are for the generation who shotgun Red Bulls for all-night sessions of Grand Theft Auto. The trash cinema tag team made their debuts with Crank, the closest a movie has ever come to being a live-action adaptation of a video game. Though it wasn’t based on any existing game, it unashamedly basked in the conventions of ultra-violent shooters and low-grade action flicks. Their next film, Gamer, appears to be a flawless fusion of the genres. The sequel to their first movie, Crank: High Voltage, provides more of the same.
The ever-grimacing Jason Statham returns as hitman Chev Chelios. In the first film, he was poisoned by Chinese gangsters and had to keep his adrenaline pumping in order to stave off the effects of the drugs. Chelios caused all kinds of mayhem and ran afoul of the Chinese, Latino gangbangers, and L.A. law enforcement. Despite falling out of a helicopter at the end of the original, someone apparently hit the continue button and Chelios is back. This time around, black marketers are planning on harvesting his organs and replaced his heart with an artificial one to keep him alive. Chelios breaks out and must keep his new ticker electrically charged. This means smashing people in the face while hooking jumper cables to his nipples. He even attempts to dry hump an old lady to cause static electricity.
Those of you expecting a subtle, heartwarming night at the movies must have wandered into the wrong theater. Crank: High Voltage is an assault on the senses with its hyperkinetic camerawork and whiplash style editing. There’s tons of nudity including a shootout in a strip club. One dancer gets shot in the implants causing them to ooze silicone. We also get an extended rapid-fire sex scene between Statham and Amy Smart (as Chelios’s girlfriend Eve) in the middle of a horse racetrack. An attempted girl-on-girl sex scene tells you exactly the audience they’re going for. Throw in a Godzilla-inspired Kaiju battle and this Crank sequel is the perfect fix for any pop culture junkie.
Though Crank: High Voltage can be a fun, no-holds barred action picture, it can also be unbearably embarrassing. Neveldine and Taylor obviously have a shallow bag of tricks and they dip into the same gags over and over again. Multiple characters are struck in the groin on numerous, painful occasions. A member of the supporting cast suffers from full body Tourette’s syndrome and goes into convulsions out of nowhere. These bits are mildly amusing at first, but get annoying when repeated ad nauseum. To top things off, Bai Ling (as a ‘Me so horny’ hooker) and David Carradine (as an old Chinese crime boss) play roles so stereotypical that they set Asians back by a hundred years. Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s was far kinder to the image of Asians everywhere.
I’ll give Neveldine/Taylor credit for going straight for the jugular with their Crank films. They won’t win any awards with high society, but if you’re looking for a pure, unadulterated B-movie experience you can’t go wrong with a Crank double feature. Statham may not be the most multi-faceted actor, but he excels in these roles as unstoppable ass kicker.
Crank: High Voltage is also packed with cameos galore including former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell as Chev’s mother, Lauren Holly as a horny psychiatrist, a sleazy looking Corey Haim (with mullet), and porn stars Ron Jeremy and Jenna Haze. Not that I’d know who those are…
Rating: **
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