Crank: High Voltage steps up the adrenaline generating insanity that made Crank so much fun. Writers/Directors Neveldine and Taylor [who seem to have dropped their first names] have put together ninety minutes of craziness that picks up with Chev Chelios [Jason Statham] hitting the ground after falling thousands of feet from a helicopter – from which point, he is bundled into a van [literally shovelled off the sidewalk – a hint of the nuttiness to come], and finally awakes as his heart is being replaced with a temporary artificial pump to keep him alive until his other organs can be harvested.
To say he doesn’t take kindly to this state of affairs is an understatement. What follows is probably best not viewed by children of any age – especially the antics that follow when Chelios loses the pump’s battery pack and has to resort to several and varied means to generate enough juice to keep the thing working. Let’s just say that the movie’s sub-title, High Voltage, is entirely appropriate.
If there is a cinematic device available, it is used here – wide-angle shots, Dutch angles, hard cuts, jump cuts, dissolves, lap dissolves, even 8-bit Nintendo-type graphics, split screen and psychedelic polarization effects! Just in passing, we get a character with “Full Body Tourettes,” striking porn stars, public sex, self mutilation, and a character right out of Futurama. Then there are the colorful sub-titles that would be right at home in Timur Bekmambetov flick and the most outrageous fight sequences in recent memory.
Crank: High Voltage lives up to its title. It is whirlwind-paced, colorful, baked, twisted and spun out of LSD-laced cotton candy. Compared to Crank: High Voltage, most other action flicks are on Quaaludes. Seriously. If you want a film that is a genuine experience – and you have no problem with sex, violence and totally whacked-out humor, this is the movie that you need to see.
Final Grade: A