Sunday, January 30, 2011

Crank: High Voltage




Much like i put off watching the first one for fear it was stupid, i put off this one until now.
And unlike last time, i was right.
What a fucking disappointment.

It's like the directors didn't understand what it was that made the first movie good, and decided to take everything that was fun about the first movie and replace it with convoluted fart jokes.
The first movie was certainly over the top and ridiculous, but it wasn't stupid.

The premise wasn't terrible, Chev survived because he's a badass, some crazy Chinese guys steal his heart, and now instead of adrenaline he needs an electric shock. i mean, if you're looking for something to top the first film there aren't too many other options.
But they took a guy that's just trying to live long enough to get vengeance and turned him into the Hulk. Electricity gives him super powers and robs the movie of any interesting conflict, once he gets shocked you know he's going to kick some ass.
The whole static electricity made from friction is one of the most convoluted joke in the movie, the sad thing is that they almost set up a funny joke, Chev is crashing, and Eve thinks it's still the poison so she tries to get his adrenaline up, but then it goes off into the stupid friction bit. Instead have him half-heartily fighting her off trying to explain, and then finds some convenient mean of shocking himself, bam, electricity fueled sex scene.
The worst joke was the guy at the creepy psychologist, thank christ they gave us a flashback to the first movie to show who he was, otherwise i'd never have fucking remembered. It's just such a painful joke because it took so long to set up and had no pay off, i mean they went with the most obvious fucking joke. Haha, it kills this schmoe we don't care about because he was off to start his life anew. Wouldn't it have been funnier if it had shot the psychiatrist and cause him to break? Or better yet, not have had him in it at all.
Wasn't he guy Chev forced to use the defibrillator as well? Why no call back to that? i guess when he's using powerlines defibrillators are chump change, at least it could have been a joke, unlike what we were given.
i didn't even care when they got the head in the jar.
As bad as all the racist and cartoony characters were, and as pointless as every single one of them was, the worst part was the end. No one ends up getting revenge, and wasn't that the whole point?
Sure Chev gets his heart back, but did he rip it out of Asian David Carridene's heart? No, Dwight Yokham's whore got him. (And seriously Poon Dong?)
Did Venus get revenge on the Ferret for his brothers death? No, a jacked up Chev jumps in and goes overkill, robbing Venus of his redemption and revenge.
Ugh.

The first movie wasn't realistic, but it was believable in it's universe. This movie on the other hand, was like watching a horrible Genre Movie parody of action movies, or a fanfic of the first Crank written by some thirteen year olds.

The only thing in this movie that lived up the first was the soundtrack, and the score was done by Mike Patton, shame there wasn't a better movie for it.

two out of five

imdb

p.s. Who the fucked bailed Eve out?