Crank: High Voltage

If you can overlook a few things (reality being the first) and go in the right mood you're likely to enjoy Crank 2. Taking itself as un-seriously as possible the film would have to have had Batman-esque "Kaplow!" signs on screen to be more tongue in cheek. In fact, I'm pretty much willing to bet that a title of "Crank 2 - Electric Boogaloo" was seriously considered at some point in its production.

For those not familiar the super ass-kicking Jason Statham plays the main character. He's a hired killer with perennial stubble who's injected with a deadly poison in the first film. Only extreme activity will keep him alive long enough to take revenge. The first film is a grab bag of violence and general civic disrespect that ends with him falling from a (very high up) helicopter to the ground below. So sort of hard to get a sequel going...

Tackling the thorny subject head on the new film starts with Statham bouncing off a car and being swept up by Chinese gang members. Oh right, before I forget - don't go if a multitude of slurs against various racial groups and/or members of differing sexual orientations offends you. Actually, don't go if anything offends you - there's something for everyone here in that respect.

They continue some of the style of the first film including the part about the local news broadcasting his rampage across the city (including his plot driven need in both films to have sex on camera in public to the enjoyment of LA's citizens who all enjoy a bit of exhibitionism apparently). Though for all I know that's a standard LA newscast topic. There's tons of gratuitous and somewhat graphic violence mixed in directly with lots of random nudity. As in the first film there's a generally intended sleazy feel to much of the sex related material and he's typically encountering naked people that look more like "real people" than naked people in a movie. Which is not altogether a good thing, especially given the directors thinly disguised need to have every ass in sight get slapped at least once or twice.

Oh right - why is he alive? Never answered other than he's tough - but he's super tough so at some point you can suspend disbelief. :-) In fairness it's handled well by making the whole movie have a feel of standing outside reality. Due to his toughness the Chinese gangsters remove his heart post fall for transplant into someone else. They make the rookie Bond villain mistake of deciding to harvest the rest of his organs later (vs. just killing him when unconscious), leaving him with a temporary artificial heart. Waking up and hearing the organ harvesting plan he decides to bust out of there. The artificial heart has a battery pack that seems to provide less running time than an iphone with a bad twitter habit. In movie terms this means Statham must constantly recharge by any means necessary. Think electrical sockets, tasers, electrical dog collars, and rubbing against people for static buildup. Yes, rubbing against people. It's too bad shooting people doesn't count towards the recharge quota or he wouldn't have had as much of a problem. As mentioned before, having sex in public is covered as a subset of "rubbing."

Statham's jack of all trades friend tells him if retrieved he can have the heart put back in. So away he goes to find the heart, only stopping to stomp heads, kill people and electrocute himself along the way.

It's fairly violent, and I think graphic as well (I tend to not watch closely when someone is cutting off a nipple onscreen so it could be more implied than graphic) with a bit of the surgery channel style footage occasionally mixed in. But it does answer important questions such as what happens if a stripper is shot through augmented breasts and can this director produce a gunfight with topless shooters, multicultural gangs and gay leather aficionados in a way that would make Tarantino proud? They do mix in some cute asides including a flashback to Statham's youth (sort of) - possibly the first such flashback in something toeing the exploitation/violence porn line.

If you like ethically questionable violence jokes including folks "ironically" being shot in the head, a gangster being question questioned while sodomized by a shotgun (< 3 minutes into the film no less) you'll almost certainly enjoy this. Otherwise it's hard to really predict if you'll find it fun or a sign of the impending downfall of western civilization. I sort of thought it was fun - at least more so than Transporter 3. But I'm not entirely proud for feeling that way, and I don't think it's one for the ages.

That said, one thing is certain. The folks making Crank 2 decided to truly go for broke with over the top action, lots of random T&A, more violent than necessary violence, language and more questionable jokes than you can shake a pair of nunchucks at. Pretty much not a compromise in sight - to which I think you can only say, in the immortal words of Ali G, "Respec"