Are you tired of troublesome storylines mucking up your movies?
Are you annoyed when you’ve got to keep track of complex and multifaceted characters with deep motivations?
Would you rather spend two hours watching frequent and nonsensical sequences of violence with gratuitous sex and nudity interspersed throughout?
If you are, then “Crank High Voltage” is most definitely the movie for you.
“Crank High Voltage” picks up the story where “Crank” left off, with ex-hitman Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) falling out of a helicopter thousands of feet in the air, landing on the streets of Los Angeles and dying.
But, as it turns out, not even death can stop the invincible heart of Chelios.
He is picked up and nursed back to health by sinister members of the Chinese Triad.
Because nothing in Chelios’s life can be simple, they harvest his heart and replace it with a battery-powered artificial heart.
The battery gets trashed during his inevitable and incredibly violent escape and Chelios must keep his body electrically charged to keep his heart going.
To do this, he tazes himself, applies jumper cables to unfortunate parts of his body and climbs power lines.
The film starts off by pointing out how unlikely it is that any events portrayed in the film would actually happen. “Crank High Voltage” knows very well that it’s here to inject a bit of the old ultra-violence and gratuitous nudity into a world of cinema that neither wants nor needs it.
This film suffers from many issues, but thanks to the unique style of co-writers and directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, it’s hard to tell what they are. While Chelios’s initial motivations are clear (he will die without a heart), the absolute insanity that follows almost defies comprehension. In any other movie, this would be a deal-breaker, but “Crank High Voltage” puts it forth so stylishly and unapologetically that it’s hard to see it as a bad thing.
The directors’ use of quick cuts and transitions enhances this effect, giving the whole movie a feeling of intense speed. As a stylistic choice, I have to say this was extremely effective.
While the spastic madness could be forgiven in a shorter format, two hours is a bit much. Audience members will likely find themselves overwhelmed once the initial novelty has worn off.
Furthermore, some of the transitions serve only as bizarre realizations of some juvenile fantasy. One sequence in particular that pits foam caricatures of Chelios and his quarry Johnny Vang (Art Hsu) in a battle reminiscent of old monster movies leaves you wondering what the hell just happened and why?
“Crank High Voltage” will appeal seriously to people with extremely short attention spans who need a lot of flashy things on screen to keep their minds from wandering. Others might enjoy it on some level, but not very deeply.
“Crank High Voltage” is fast, fun and utterly forgettable.
