Crank 2: High Voltage

In the original Crank, Jason Statham played Chev Chelios, a hitman poisoned by a "Chinese synthetic", doing anything he could to keep his adrenaline levels up and his heart pumping, including electrocuting himself, having sex in public and committing many acts of wanton violence as he tracked down his would-be killers. It also ended with him plummeting out of a helicopter and dying. Or so we thought.

Crank 2: High Voltage begins exactly where we left off, with a Triad gang literally scraping Chelios off the tarmac and taking him away to have his indestructible heart removed for transplant, replacing it with a temporary artifical heart to keep him alive long enough to harvest his other organs. Of course, he's not too happy with all of this and escapes in pursuit of his "Strawberry Tart", doing anything possible to keep his artifical one charged, including electrocuting himself, having sex in public and committing many acts of wanton violence. Sound familiar?

Crank was a masterpiece of off-the-wall lunacy with no pretensions of making sense or pleasing critics - it was a highly condensed 90-minute thrill ride and was ludicrously entertaining for it. Unfortunately, in its efforts to outdo its predecessor, Crank 2 sadly crosses the line from being implausible but still vaguely grounded in reality to pure fantasy, and the film ultimately loses something as a result. Although still entertaining, almost every element of Crank 2 seems to go just a little too far, the hyper-kinetic camera-work and editing being the main offenders here. Jason Statham still proves to be a charismatic leading man, with Amy Smart and Dwight Yoakam both providing solid support and clearly having a lot of fun, but the less said about the rest of the cast the better. And I have to say, as much as I appreciate gratuitous violence used in a comedic manner, I could have done without the graphic nipple-slicing...

VERDICT: Insane but ultimately a bit disappointing. Watch the original.

IMDb