THE CRITIC-AL LIST
Reviews by Alan Jones
5 STAR FAB - 1 STAR RUBBISH

Salt
The Expendables
The Last Airbender
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Inception
Predators
The Twilight Saga:Eclipse
Toy Story 3
Hot Tub Time Machine
Iron Man 2
Repo Men
The Collector
Clash of the Titans
Shelter
How To Train Your Dragon
Kick-Ass
Shutter Island
Alice In Wonderland
The Crazies
Case 39
The Wolfman
Legion
The Lovely Bones
Black Death
Daybreakers
Avatar
Ninja Assassin
The Descent: Part 2
Amer
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The Box
2012
Disney's A Christmas Carol
The Horseman
Solomon Kane
Pandorum
Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs
District 9
An Education
G.I. Joe: The Rise Of The Cobra
Orphan
A Perfect Getaway
The Imaginarium Of
Doctor Parnassus
Up
Harry Potter
And The Half-Blood Prince
The Taking of Pelham 123
Transformers
The Revenge Of The Fallen
Antichrist
Terminator Salvation
Last House On The Left
Inglorious Basterds
Angels & Demons
Adventureland
Star Trek
Crank: High Voltage
Coraline
Dragonball Evolution
Let The Right One In
Drag Me To Hell
Race to Witch Mountain
Knowing
Monsters Vs. Aliens
Not Quite Hollywood
Lesbian Vampire Killers
Martyrs
The Children
Surveillance
Watchmen
The Unborn
The International
Friday The 13th
Franklyn
Push
Punisher:War Zone
The Good The Bad And
The Weird
Hush
Underworld
The Rise OF The Lycans
My Bloody Valentine
Bolt
Slumdog Millionaire

Directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor. Starring Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Clifton Collins, Jr., Dwight Yoakam, Geri Halliwell and Corey Haim. Action, USA, 84 min. Web Site.

Within minutes of this identikit sequel to the first speed-freak cult movie starting, cigarette ash and spit have been lobbed into an open-heart surgery cavity, a gunman has a rifle lubricated with oil shoved up his ass and Little Anthony and the Imperials have blared out ‘Tears on My Pillow’ from a car stereo. 

There’s nothing new in CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE you didn’t see first time around, except here everything has been ramped up 100% into further over the top violence, outrage and offensiveness. Basically an ageing Chinese mobster steals Chev Chelios’ (Jason Statham) virtually indestructible heart for a new lease of life as word on the LA streets spread about how the hit-man’s ‘strawberry tart’ proved super-human when injected with poison last time out. Picking up from CRANK’s airborne climax Chelios goes in pursuit of his organ through the usual video-game inspired hurdles involving gang warfare, horse-racing, a porn actors’ strike (led by Ron Jeremy) and genital torture. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it is returning co-directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor’s philosophy in their lewder, cruder continuation of the preposterously frenetic franchise that sees the core cast back too. Insanely but hilariously vicious as before (male nipple slicing, how to make human flesh sushi) the live-action cartoon skirmishes include beyond bad taste racism and sexism, slurs towards every gender and rapid fire swearing. That’s among the CRANK holdovers of gimmicky sound effects, crass musical counterpoint, faux educational film explanations and crazed subtitling (latter favourite being ‘Massive Homo C**t). Statham’s easy hard-man charm, charisma and sense of own ridiculousness go a long way into making even the daftest scenario palatable. A good example being the restaging of the sex-in-public gag with stripper Amy Smart, frictional foreplay with a horny OAP setting the joke up. Efren Ramirez plays Venus, the twin of his Kaylo character from the first movie - his medical condition of Body Tourette’s Syndrome pinpointing how far-out and preposterous everything is in this fun-bad lunatic distraction. Maddest performance comes from Bai Ling as hooker Ria who mangles the English language enough for Chelios to exclaim, ‘You must be speaking C**tonese!” Yet despite increased vulgarity, editing to within an inch of its life and copious bloodshed, plus the Japanese monster movie homage, David Carradine in elderly KUNG FU mode and ex-Spice Girl Geri Halliwell playing Statham’s mother in tabloid talk show flashback, HIGH VOLTAGE runs out of staccato steam well before the ludicrous sci-fi climax.

Statham may get jolted into action by many electrical methods here, but will the box-office power source prove enough for a third bite at the CRANK cherry?

Alan Jones

© London FrightFest Ltd. 2000-2009
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