IT;s NOT MY VIEW ASK Mr. HERMIT HE WILL KNOW ALL REVIWERS AND HE CAN TELL WHOSE TAKE IT IS, Crank: High Voltage’s sole reason for being is to out-gross and gross-out its perfect 2006 predecessor. This sequel is bigger, and even sicker than the charmingly rotgut original, and if that doesn’t sound like such a good idea then this will probably be the longest 96 minutes, if you can digest hard hitting raw action flick. High Voltage” is even more frenetic than you expect. Crazier than crazy. And chock full of fun Crank: High Voltage is a riot. It’s a restless, nonsensical dance through the ids of two developmentally stunted young filmmakers(Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, who are eager to offend everybody.
Jason Statham returns as Chev Chelios, who starts the movie by dropping from the sky, landing on top of a car and, of course, surviving. That’s starting scene, which is mind blowing. Neveldine/Taylor have outdone themselves with this sequel is happy news for action fans, even if everyone else will be revolted by the movie’s rampant racism, sexism and bloodlust. We’re talking strippers with machine guns, gay bike gangs and a surreal rubber-suit fight scene that would do Godzilla proud.
Chinese thugs who remove his heart and leave him with an artificial ticker capture him. Seems his organs are in demand given his ability to withstand all sorts of punishment - and walk away without a scratch. Saddled with an artificial ticker that’s got a broken battery, Statham once again busts heads and kicks a** all over the L.A. underworld, attempting to get his heart back while causing untold carnage along the way. Periodically he must recharge with electric shocks—from jumper cables, car cigarette lighters or just the static generated from rubbing his crotch against an old lady.
The movie never slows down long. Every sequence brings another affront to common decency, whether that’s a shootout at a strip club that leaves silicone spraying in the crossfire, a villain’s severed head kept alive in a fish tank or just a cameo by Corey Haim.
Chelios escapes before doctors can snip away any more vital parts, and the chase is officially on to reclaim his “strawberry tart.”
But Chelios needs to keep recharging his fake heart in order to stay alive … and pummel the guys who took it.
“Crank: High Voltage” is so over the top in so many ways you’ll need an abacus just to keep score. It’s doesn’t just experiment in racial stereotypes, it implodes them until they litter the screen.
Co-star Amy Smart doesn’t simply bare her breasts, she has sex with Chelios in the middle of a race track - and that’s before her stripping scene and gal power fight with a ex-beau. Her wardrobe for the film is something weird.
Country crooner Dwight Yoakam somehow fares worse. He’s either a good sport, or he lost a really embarraing bet.
Writer/directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor slice and dice the footage, use split screens when the mood strikes and cobble together the action sequences as if they were just as juiced as Chelios.
It’s not for the easily offended - or for those with even a pinch of moral righteousness. Everyone else will enjoy roughly 50 minutes of sheer adrenaline.
But Neveldine and Taylor run out of card tricks long before Chelios and his tart can be reunited, and the final moments are ugly without the benefit of wit, humor or even the kind of excess that made the preceding scenes feel so liberating.
Crank: High Voltage goes about its business with a better sense of humor. More fun are the absurd digressions and set pieces that Neveldine/Taylor cram into the proceedings with a unashamed disregard for the usual rules of time, space and continuity.
Tasteless, trashy and totally over the top.