CRANK 2 - HIGH VOLTAGE : Review

I gotta admit it. I love big dumb action movies. All the way from the graceful death ballet of Hard Boiled to the gritty one line spitting Die Hard, I love to turn my brain off and just enjoy gratuitous violence from time to time. So obviously, I'm a huge fan of the first Crank. Plot wise, it was genius - An assassin called Chev Chellios, played by Jason Statham gets poisoned in his sleep, he has a limited amount of time to live, and he sets out for revenge. And the only thing that'll keep him alive is adrenaline. It sounds like the setup to a standard action movie, right? WRONG. Crank has to be one of the most ridiculous action movies ever made, and easily one of my favorites. Without giving much away, it features substance abuse, copious amounts of relentless violence, genius car chases and a lot of sex. Of course, anyone who's seen the original Crank knows there's no way in hell they could get away with a sequel. At all. End of.

At least, I thought that until I saw this.

Put it this way - any grounding in reality the original movie had has been shot, stabbed, drowned, blown up, strapped to the side of a rocket and launched to the dark side of the moon. If you thought Crank was ridiculous, NOTHING will prepare you for the insanity of this movie.

So, the plot. Chev gets scraped off the floor with a snow shovel and thrown in the back of a van. In a surprisingly funny and gory operation scene, Yakuzas remove his insanely powerful heart to give to a Yakuza warlord who's dying. They replace his with an electronic piece of crap, and try to keep him alive to harvest his organs. Obviously, Chev kicks the living crap out of every one of them. Then shoots a shitload of guys. Then sodomizes a guard with his shotgun. I could not make this shit up.

So he discovers that the only way to keep his electronic heart pumping, until he can get his "strawberry tart" back, is to keep his body electrically charged. So basically, replace adrenaline with electricity and you have the basis for this movie. Grievous bodily self harm is one of the main themes of this movie, played in the funniest way possible - for instance, at the beginning of a movie, Chev hooks himself up to a car with jump leads (including one on his tounge) to give himself a jump start. And from there, this movie forgets what the top of over the top is, and decides to leave the solar system of plausibility.

And that's Crank's problem right there. It was so brash and ridiculous that even though I went in a little drunk and high, ready to laugh my ass off, I still couldn't help but pick holes in the logic of this movie. The original had a slight grounding in reality. Not much, but it was noticeable. This movie has absolutely no realism at all. You really do have to surrender your brain in the opening 10 minutes, or you may as well walk out of the theater.

That said though, primarily as a gun wank to distract you from the impending end of the world, this movie is great.

So what in the movie stands out? For a start, the dialogue and acting in this movie are insanely funny. Everyone must have had a damn good time, and it shows in the characters. Jason plays Chev perfectly, he's shouting, screaming, swearing, giving what has to be a nomination for the most deadpan acting I've ever seen in my life. Amy Smart is also funny as hell in the movie, she gets some cool one-liners and a public sex scene for all you perverts ;)

Keone Young also returns as Don Kim, and gives a seriously funny performance for the short time he's on screen. Efren Ramirez also makes a return from the first movie too, as Kaylo's brother who suffers from full body tourettes. There's plenty of other good actors in this too, I just can't be assed IMDB'ing them all to tell you about them.

The cinematography is very good too, lots of shaky cam and handicam shots. Though this does make it bad for the sufferers of motion sickness, it adds even more the the movie's already insane pace and makes for some really claustrophobic and well thought out action scenes.

Ah, the action. I'll be honest, apart from the odd bit of dark humor, that's why you're watching the movie. Trust me, Crank 2 does not let up for even one second. The pace is utterly relentless from start to end, and when you notice there's no guns for a while, trust me when I say you're about to see ANOTHER kickass action scene. It's particularly brutal this time, the gore's been seriously ramped up and the action has a lot more character and cool moves - one complaint leveled at the last Crank was the action scene at the end, where everybody just sort of stood there and shot each other. Not so this time, by a long mile.

Soundtrack is okay I guess, if you're into your metal then it's pretty good, but it's not going to be good for everyone. It fits the mood well, but not much else, and could really use a little diversity.

One more thing I should really say before I go - the ending fucking sucks. I hate it. I think it's just a little TOO ridiculous for me, especially seeing the return of a character from the first movie that REALLY OUGHT TO BE DEAD BY NOW. That and something happens to Chev that ruins the probability of another movie. I think. I didn't stay for the credits, and a friend I saw it with was begging me to JUST GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE THEATER. See, there are a shitload of people who are going to hate this movie. And when I say a lot, I mean anyone with half a brain. So, for action junkies, I can happily say this...

FULL PRICE!!!

It's a shitload of dumb fun, and I wouldn't expect anything else from a Crank movie.

However, for all the other guys that don't like brainless action, I gotta say...

RENTAL

This movie is utterly ridiculous. And most people will hate it for that. But you know what, there's probably already a drinking game for it. As a funny, drunken chill out movie, or something fun to watch while passing a doobie. Nothing else. Good for one gun wank, then discard.