Crank: High Voltage

Review by Jason Donner

I’m going to tell the truth here. It’s been almost four weeks since I watched Crank: High Voltage and I’ve been putting off doing a review of it all this time. Seriously, what can I really say about it? Crank: High Voltage is a movie that is pretty much immune to anything I can throw at it. I can say that it’s stupid and over the top, but that’s like complaining that you don’t like Star Trek because it has spaceships in it. I could point out the paper thin plot in lue of frantic action, but that’s like not enjoying Monsters Inc. because it focused too much on monsters.

Despite all odds, the laws of physics, and pure Vulcan logic, Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) is back.  He's been in a coma for three months and, while peacefully sleeping, an aged Chinese crime lord has stolen his heart and the only thing keeping Chev alive are regular jolts of electricity to keep his artificial pumper pumping.

So, what can I say about this movie? I can always fall back on my old stand-by asking the most important question of all: Is this movie entertaining? From there, we get stuck again because the Crank movies are polarizing little bastards. You either love them or you hate them. Personally, I loved the first one but one of the things that I loved about it was that it didn’t wimp out on its own concept and the protagonist died at the end and he died hard.  Come to think of it, the mere existence of a sequel destroys the promise made in the first movie. It’s like the Highlander sequels – how many times can you say that there can be only one when there were, like ,five sequels? Do you have any idea how silly it all sounds?

Still, if you did enjoy Crank, you’re going to enjoy the sequel. Jason Statham’s Chev Chelios is the ultimate anti-superhero and the situations in this movie are every bit if not more outrageous than the first. Crank: High Voltage delivers on its simple promise for a high octane and largely brain-free romp of an action movie. This movie is even louder and crazier than the last one. It’s tasteless, vulgar, and just funny as hell. That’s how you enjoy these movies: You accept them as the balls-out action comedies that they are and just go with it. You’re either going to love it or hate it and you can pretty much gauge if you’re going to love it or hate it based on your reaction to the first movie.

Personally, I liked it. This movie is a grandiose kick in the nuts to action hacks who prefer to stick to boring old formulas and tired situations.  It's not heady or overtly intelligent, but it does have Jason Statham hooking jumper cables to his tongue and nipple and if that's not worth the price of admission, I'm not sure what is.