• What’s Good: Crank
• What’s Not: The impossibility of a third “Crank.” Sigh, the world is just not ready to embrace this series–or perhaps I’m dumb for embracing it. Either way I’ll be made fun of for rating the film so high. I would call it way ahead of its time but that would only get me made fun of more.

Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank is destined to be misread and/or dismissed as being another dumb action flick that’s more video game than movie, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank,Filmmakers Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (music video guys of course) do a marvelous job of keeping the high wire pacing of the first (or, another way to put it: repeat themselves) and yet still manage to surpass the OC (original “Crank”) by throwing caution to the wind and allowing this follow-up to be more random, over the top and funny. Crank, Crank, Crank, You want sex? Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Severed heads… Crank, Crank, Crank … that talk! Crank, Crank, Shotgun sodomy? Crank, Crank, Crank,Hookers coming at us from all angles (this film can boast the first ever appropriate usage of Bai Ling in the history of cinema)? Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Drugs? Crank, Crank, How about Cory Haim with a mullet and a shit load of random-ass cameos ranging from the Troma guy to Maynard James Keenan to the dude from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” brilliantly reprising his thirty second role from the first “Crank?” Crank, Crank, Oh, and how about gangs? Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Not just thug gangs either but motorcycle gangs run by gay black cowboys? Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank,It’s all here even if the finer comic subtleties may be hard to tolerate for most seeing as how a lot of what happens might not even perceived as funny or amusing, parody or not, (slicing one’s nipples off is not for everyone after all) in addition to the fact that film stretched beyond all reason to the point of meta-action and hyper(bolic)fiction. Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, The joy of the film, though, is that it also throws into the melting pot things I didn’t know I wanted in a “Crank” sequel. Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank,Like a scene where, after running around with the protag’s heart in a cooler, a pierced Triad throws the Duracell Bunny protagonist (Jason Statham) into a live power line. Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, This is a mistake seeing as how his body feeds off electricity after Chinese organ thieves took out his heart (to give it to his leader Poon Dong… but of course) and replaced it with a battery. Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, This sudden burst of Joules sends the bald Brit into a blitzed-out state of half plasma/half man-ness and what happens next nobody could expect… Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank …an honest to god Godzilla style homage featuring Jason Statham in a Jason Statham costume (!!!) engaged in a man-on-man fight across a miniaturized battlefield! Crank, Crank, Crank, So, yeah, the film will try anything. Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank,It never stops and the stylized-to-the-point-of-motion-sickness filmmaking taps right into Stathem’s fiery id gone wild. Crank, Crank, Crank, If the first “Crank” is the movie “Speed” transplanted onto a person, then “Crank: High Voltage” must be, um, “Crank” on a person– which is to say overkill layered on top of more overkill. Crank, Crank, Crank,From going down the list of Kama Sutra moves in public (as a life saving measure to generate static electricity in case you wondering) to getting cigarettes put out on his gaping, still beating heart, Statham is up for anything. Crank, Crank, And EVERYTHING. Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank,The actor and character literally gives his body up for this experimental film (what else can it be called?) where the human body is tested to it’s limits, dies, revives and lumbers around like a crazed Frankenstein video game monster who feeds on the stuff of pure energy (the tagline “he died… but he got better” says it all doesn’t it?). Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Never has an action film delivered so thoroughly on its title. Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank, Crank… Crank.

Grade: CrAnk