Amy Smart Movie:

		List Price: $29.95		Label: Lionsgate Salesrank: 4105 Released: September 8, 2009
		Our Price: $9.69
		Used Price: $5.95
		MPAA Rating: R (Restricted) Media: DVD

Editorial Review:

Genre: Action/Adventure
Rating: R
Release Date: 8-SEP-2009
Media Type: DVD

Description of Crank 2: High Voltage:
The critics have not been very kind to Crank: High Voltage. But what do they know? Here’s what this movie has going for it: gratuitous nudity, mindless violence, constant profanity, and a ridiculous storyline. Add to that stereotypes galore (gay, Asian, Latino, the neuropsychiatrically disabled, you name it), strippers with guns, a strike by porn actors (with a cameo appearance by Ron Jeremy), and a guy who refers to his heart as a "strawberry tart," and one can only wonder what’s not to like. In fact, writer-director-producers Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor’s sequel to 2006’s Crank is an absolute hoot, a non-stop assault of crazy sights and sounds that will leave you breathless and laughing. As the action starts, Jason Statham’s Chev Chelios has not only survived the fall from a helicopter that ended the earlier film, but is now on the operating table, awake and watching as some Chinese villains harvest his "tart" in order to implant it in their aging leader (a wacky turn by David Carradine). Chev quickly dispatches the bad guys, but the fun’s just starting; the mechanical ticker they’ve put inside him needs constant recharging, so as Chev pursues the real organ, he must use whatever’s available (jumper cables, a police taser, a car cigarette lighter, high voltage power lines) to keep the fake one going. Storywise, that’s about it. But it’s plenty, as the filmmakers’ ultra-kinetic style--with its manic edits, cartoony subtitles, and other envelope-stretching effects--and amusing performances by Amy Smart (as Chev’s girlfriend), Dwight Yoakam (as a "doctor" who helps him figure out what’s happening), and others keep things going. No, Crank: High Voltage ain’t exactly Masterpiece Theater, but this is without a doubt one of 2009’s most entertaining films. --Sam Graham

Crank 2: High Voltage Reviews:
More than the original in all the wrong ways
2009-12-21 - After seeing and mostly enjoying the original Crank, I decided to check out this sequel. I was hoping for some more good-natured, mindless, violent entertainment to spice up an otherwise boring Tuesday night.

Well, they certainly got the 'mindless' part right.

Crank 2: High Voltage starts off reminding the viewer that Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) died at the end of the last movie. Well, sorta. See, it turns out that after falling out of a helicopter onto the roof of a car and landing on the concrete, he was immediately picked up by some goons and taken to some seedy underground hospital room where his heart was stolen and replaced with an artificial one.

Apparently some bad guys wanted to put Chev's heart into the body of some old lecherous crime-lord named Poon Dong because Poon's was giving out from the rigors of old age and young prostitutes. Chelios had the strongest heart of anyone they knew, so they decided to go after his.

I guess Poon didn't have health insurance or couldn't get on a donor list or something because black market organ harvesting is messy business - especially when the donor wakes up and starts killing all your underlings.

One might wonder why an evil old crime boss wouldn't just take Chelios' heart and let him die, rather than spend the money and resources replacing it with an expensive, high-tech, slightly finicky new one. Or for that matter, why not just replace his with the artificial one to begin with? It's not like they were trying to make Chelios a slave to Poon Dong, which could have been an interesting twist. To the contrary, they just start trying to kill Chelios after he's received his heart transplant, which makes you wonder why they bothered keeping him alive in the first place.

Of course this type of logic has no real place in a movie like this, so let's just get on with the review...

Anyhow, Chelios predictably breaks free of his surgeon captors, and immediately goes on a rampage. His mission: Get his heart back.

Ahh, but there's a catch. See, his new heart has an external battery that constantly needs to be recharged. So Chelios has to find new and creative ways to do this in between shooting up bad guys, getting in fist fights, and running from the authorities. So Chelios is constantly on the lookout for sources of electricity, be it a car battery, power line, or police Taser.

Now if this was all there was to the movie, honestly, it wouldn't be too bad. Silly, yes. But not terribly more so than the first.

Unfortunately, this movie makes some extremely questionable choices in bizarre cut-scenes that made me suspect that someone had slipped some magic mushrooms into my popcorn.

These kind of scenes might work if the director was making a short film in the style of David Lynch. But this isn't that type of movie. This kind of movie owes its audience what it promises. Gun fights. Fist fight. Sword fights. Knife fights. Blood. Explosions. A few scenes of gratuitous nudity. And some more fighting, just for good measure. Really, that's all the audience wants.

Instead of enhancing the story or attempting to add depth to one-dimensional characters, the cut-scenes end up taking screen time away from the main character and making the audience sit through painful, boring, awkward parts when all they really want is some fighting and guns.

In short, this film is a bit of a mess. Worth a rental, maybe, but there are far better films out there in this style that deliver better on what they promise.

Did anyone read the script?
2009-12-21 - With good reason, the critics have not been very kind to Crank 2: High Voltage. I must ask: Jason Statham did you read the script? (No.) Did your agent read the script? (No.) Did your manager read the script? (No.) Did anyone read the script? (No). Didn't think so. This movie is horrible on many levels. Its caliber is so low that it called for an amateur actor, not a mid-career or veteran actor. In addition, it could not pass for a made-for-tv film. Final analysis: mindless script filled with filth, soft porn, and little action (in comparison to Statham's other films), remotely entertaining, contributes virtually nothing to Jason Statham's body of work or the film industry. ...FAIL.

Highly Entertaining Preposterousness
2009-12-14 - When the turgid member of a race horse is seen from below by two characters engaged in public copulation on the dirt of a horse track, one can't possibly take the movie seriously. Crank 2: High Voltage is absurd for the sake of absurdity. Saturated with the scantily clad and nude, replete with the raunchy and ridiculous, with language that makes Scarface blush, the entire purpose of the movie is to entertain without critical reasoning.

It's as if filmmakers Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor simply threw ideas at one another, attempting to trump one another with the most bizarre movie additions possible. Bai Ling as a prostitute with hilariously bad Engrish? Sure. Porn stars on strike and threatening to bone any spot on a car that resembles an orifice? Let's do it. David Caradine as a perverted geriatric Chinese man? Put it in there. A turf war between the Chinese and Mexican gangs to harvest the previously poisoned organs - particularly the crank - of Chev Chelios (Statham) after he fell thousands of feet from a helicopter and had his seemingly indestructible heart given to a Triad leader and replaced by a state of the art artificial number that has a predictably short shelf life. Heck, let's make that the plot!

With several other overboard scenes, this is a film sure to get mixed reviews. If you like off the wall action, however, and were particularly fond of the unpredictably bizarre nature of the Feast series, then this is where you need to spend the next few hours. As with the prequel, buckle up and put your hands in the air; that's the only way to fully enjoy a rollercoaster.

Totally implausible and hugely entertaining
2009-12-10 - I really enjoyed the original Crank movie and was looking forward to Crank 2. To my great surprise, I like the second even better! Why? It is even more ludicrous, fantastic, obscene, outrageous, unpredictable and playful than the first. I found myself laughing out loud many times and even jaw dropped two or three times by what's on the screen.

I have long wondered when filmmakers would abandon the pretenses of a plausibility and/or plot development and resolution. Kudos to the Crank makers who had the guts to do just this. They've made movies that are very funny and action packed. If you want something that makes a lot of sense and is believable, you will probably hate this movie. If you want something fun, outrageous, bloody, and surprising, this is great.

One word of advice -- I think you will like the second Crank better if you've seen the original Crank first!

Really enjoyed this movie -- wish there were more this fun and crazy.

nothing short of "high voltage"
2009-11-26 - after seeing this film in theaters, i knew that this was definitely going to become one of my all-time favorite films. my critera for a 'favorite film' is quite different than most other people: I follow one simple rule: can i watch this movie any time & still have a blast? answer: definitely. crank 2 delevers in every single way! this movie gives new meaning to 'over the top' action, yet absolutely NEVER slouches on the humor and vulgarity. jason statham can always perform the all 'tough-guy bravado' the character deserves, yet his knack for being funny is delivered in this film like no other he has done in the past. amy smart plays statham's girlfriend gone stripper complete with the same bubble, confusion, and sexiness that she had in the first. special props also go to dwight yoakam for his once again brilliant performance as statham's ghetto-booty obsessed doctor.
brilliant, hillarious, and full of high voltage- crank 2 tops everything the first film already established by 10! if you loved crank, you're going to the sequel even more.
excellent action sequences, a severed talking head in a fish tank, a brilliant homage to godzilla, blatant & vulgar humor sees crank 2 as one of my favorite films!!!