Nonstop Killing Spree with Insane Electric Charges to Keep the Action Going

The film stars Jason Statham as the hit man Chev Chelios who was introduced in the original “Crank” film. I purposely skipped the first film as it has many scenes filmed with a ‘hand held’ camera and I can’t take the motion sickness that type of filming causes. This film however created its own motion sickness for me and it wasn’t due to a ‘hand held’ camera. Most likely it was the extreme and I do mean extreme bloody nonstop violence in the film. Or perhaps it was the nauseating torture or maybe the distasteful sexual content. Or quite possibly the nonstop brain-dead creepy characters that stream in and out. Hmm... I’m not really sure. However, if I had a teenage son or daughter I would definitely NOT allow them to see this film. Parents, it’s easy, “Just say, you’re not allowed.” Just like I told my 20 yr. old college daughter, “You are not allowed to travel to Mexico right now.”

The script is pathetically bad and the storyline is worse. We have a guy, Chev Chelios who survives a fall from a helicopter and lands on a car and then the cement pavement. He’s immediately taken from the scene by a group of fake looking Chinese dudes that are disguised as medics. Next, Chev awakens during what appears to be an open heart surgical procedure. We learn that his heart has been removed and an ‘artificial plasma soup–can contraption’ has been installed.  Like Frankenstein, he jump starts into action with a series of grunts and growls at the so called doctors and proceeds to kick some you know what.

He calls his sleazy friend Doc Miles (Dwight Yoakam) and–oh yes, he does have his cell phone and it works perfectly after his fall from the helicopter and his kidnapping! Good ole Doc proceeds to tell Chev how his new heart works (the audience is shown 3rd grade science diagrams along with the explanation). Is this the intended intelligence level of the viewers?  Maybe that clarifies the blatantly awful plot.  So... after a lengthy boring teaching lesson, we know that Chev will need electric volts to keep his fake heart charged and that he better get goin’ on those electric shocks ASAP. He finds some dudes with a set of car battery chargers and you guessed it, he attaches the steel jumper cables to each side of his bare chest and gives himself a jolt. By now the film is so unrealistic and farfetched that this scene is only laughable at best.

Eve (Amy Smart), Chev’s girlfriend from the first film suddenly makes an appearance (out of nowhere) in a strip club. She can scarcely believe her eyes when she sees Chev as she thought he was long gone. The next scene is another violent blood bath with bullets flying everywhere and this time scantily clad girls are gunned down along with many other rough tattooed dudes with gold teeth and lots of funky body piercings. At this point the audience has seen about 25 people killed in the film and it’s just begun.

The remaining two-thirds of the film involves Chev’s constant jump starting of his heart as he chases after various Chinese and Latino gang members. The violence increases and the scenes only become bloodier and more gruesome. The film’s running time is a little over an hour and a half but it felt like I’d been in the theater for over three hours. When you are experiencing a good film the time goes by so quickly, here I wanted to bail after the first 10 minutes as it seemed like an eternity.

During the credits we are shown an important scene that should have been included at the end of the film. Most people left my showing at this time and I’m sure many others didn’t really see the end of the film. I don’t usually give away endings but I will tell you that Chev is shown in white bandages covering all of his body except his closed eyes, nose and mouth. The camera gingerly pans his face and I’ll be darned if he doesn’t slowly open those baby blue eyes. All I kept thinking was, “Please! Stay closed! I can’t take Crank 3!

Sarah Adamson © 2009