‘Crank: High Voltage’

Directed by: Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor

Starring: Jason Statham, Amy Smart, David Carradine

Grade: A-

If Jason Statham’s reputation as a human action figure who will someday bring about the apocalypse hasn’t been cemented by ‘Death Race’ and the ‘Transporter’ series, then ‘Crank: High Voltage’ will reiterate that fact.

Playing indestructible hit man Chev Chelios, Jason Statham picks up exactly where 2006’s ‘Crank’ left off. After a slick, 8-bit video game intro sequence, Chelios falls out of a helicopter and bounces off a car with nary a speck of blood spilled. Immediately afterward, he is taken to a hospital where he witnesses doctors removing his own heart.

He gets this replaced with a battery-powered artificial heart, which needs to be recharged by a constant stream of electricity. He obtains said electricity by shocking himself with power lines, transformer boxes, car batteries, static electricity and by having sex with his girlfriend-turned-stripper, Eve (Amy Smart, ‘Just Friends’). He finds out after interrogating a man (with a shotgun) that Triads have taken his heart and are planning to transplant it into 100-year-old Triad boss Poon Dong (David Carradine, ‘Kill Bill: Vol. 2’).

The entire movie is so superficially cheesy, so self-referencing, so suspense-defying that it begs not to be taken seriously. It doesn’t try to win an Oscar for best screenplay like so many lesser-action movies frustratingly attempt to – Michael Bay could learn a thing or two from directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (‘Crank’), who draw inspiration from blaxploitation movies and ‘Godzilla’ to classic video games and even the media’s sensationalism of violence.

Mercifully, the film works on the principle of eliminating any semblance of plot, story, character development or other useless matters that get in the way of Statham punching people repeatedly in the face. The term ‘in your face’ gets tossed around a lot, but the pounding rock soundtrack and fast scene cuts complement the utter insanity of it all.

When action movies cross the line into cartoony outrageousness, they become truly entertaining popcorn fare. It’s an anti-romantic-comedy: For every ‘Ghosts of Girlfriends Past,’ there’s ‘Crank: High Voltage.’ And all remains right with the world.

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Published on April 22, 2009 at 12:00 pm