CRANK 2: HIGH VOLTAGE: Where's my government to protect me from this filth???

CRANK 2: HIGH VOLTAGE
Starring Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Bai Ling
Directed by Neveldine/Taylor
Lionsgate
Review by Louis Fowler

The more socially irresponsible and irredeemable a movie, the more I'll probably like it. And, let's be honest: it doesn't get more socially irresponsible or irredeemable than CRANK 2: HIGH VOLTAGE. It's got wanton drug use, hilarious racism, bone-cracking misogyny, rampant use of the f-word...it's everything that an impressionable youngster, such as I, needs and wants to give him the courage to commit arson, rape or a hate crime.

CRANK 2 is so extreme that you gotta ask just how was this ultra-un-PC affair not only bankrolled by a Hollywood studio, but how are Neveldine/Taylor not blacklisted and booted out of the town? How is Obama not coming out against these guys? Where's the Senate bill to protect us from such utter filth and garbage? I demand to be protected!

But, given the balls on N/T, I'm sure that they'd just go on to become cinematic outlaws, making underground action flicks and distributing them via some sort of clandestine bootlegging outlet, probably with ads in the back of 'zines. And maybe that's why I love everything these guys do so much: they aren't fakes or frauds. Their insanely intense love of not filmmaking, but ENTERTAINING, comes through in every single frame of whatever they do. Especially here. CRANK 2, is, quite honestly, the most entertaining movie you could watch, ever. And I say that with total disregard for hyperbole!

Chev “Fuck You” Chelios miraculously survives his drop out of a helicopter, pounding the pavement, only to be immediately shoveled—literally—off the road and thrown into the back of a van filled with Triads who then go as far as to carve out his ticker, give it to a dude named Poon Dong, and replace it with an artificial one that, per the movie's subtitle, needs constant jolts of electricity to keep it running. He then goes through a labyrinthine puzzle of villains and thugs to get it back, and, yeah, just from that line right there, I can see how you'd think it would be just like the first CRANK, and, story-wise, it sure is.

But the original feels so restrained in comparison—N/T use every style possible to get Chelios from point A to point B, one homage or rip-off thrown in with no rhyme or reason. Mexican spastics, Thai hookers, black leather-daddies, picketing porn stars, Ginger Spice, a recreated scene from KING KONG VS. GODZILLA and a race-horse's massive cock...and I'm still missing things. Outside of a Troma movie, or maybe a Bolivian snuff film, I can even think of another movie that not really pushes the boundaries, but defecates on them with retard-strength glee, especially in a mainstream flick, the way CRANK 2 does.

CRANK 2: HIGH VOLTAGE will make you want to actually try crank. Actually load up a syringe with chemical-based homemade drugs and shoot it into the space between your fingers. It's a gateway film to harder, rougher things that'll have you prostitute your own Asian mother for cash to get more. And, for that, I wish you a long career in Hollywood, Neveldine/Taylor. Me love you long time.