Movie Review: Crank 2: High Voltage (2009)

"To be or not to be, roight, that's the question, innit?"

Crank was a one-note live-action video game. Crank 2: High Voltage doesn't have any notes. Jason Statham, as Chev Chelios, sprints full-tilt from one marginal or ethnic group to another, sharing foul language and beatdowns, both usually targeted at the bathing suit area. Somehow, it's even more juvenile than the original. This time around Chelios is fueled by electricity rather than sugary snacks. He does things, and he does them fast, and he does them ultra-violently, all in order to keep his prosthetic heart pumping. It's a wonderfully appropriate premise for an action film, but High Voltage treats it as little more than an excuse to be as unapologetically offensive and exploitative as possible. It's bacchanalist cinema. Whereas Crank may (and I do stress, may) have a modicum of social critique behind its mayhem, High Voltage is offensive to the point of inarticulateness. It's too busy getting off to tell you anything insightful about the world. It revels in the sort of visual aggressiveness it burlesques, not to mention the hideous stereotypes. Stylistically, there's so much going on here, from the video game aesthetics of the pixelated opening sequence (reminding me of NARC, Smash TV, and other late 80s/early 90s arcade shooters) to the retro Godzilla wrestling match and the trashy daytime talk show, to the skateboard video shooting style, that I would hesitate to call it postmodern; hyper-postmodern is more apt. There's some laughs to be had, surely (Statham's always enjoyable as a hero caught in increasingly absurd situations), but it's strangely tiresome to watch for such a short, testosterone-edited film. Statham fans should find enough strange goings-on here to amuse them once, but everyone else will probably find it altogether too crass to care.