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Jason Statham returns as Chev Chelios in his second
franchise role of note, to continue his pursuit of becoming the best
one-note film star since the whole cycle of JCVD, Steven Seagal and
Chuck Norris. Neveldine and Taylor also return from their first Crank film, with a bigger budget with every intention to push the envelope of taste, decency and brutality. At the end of the first film, Chev fell from a helicopter and crashed into a car. At the start of the second film, he wakes up on an operating table with his heart missing and hooked up to a battery pack. After beating up the ‘doctors’, Chev is told he has an artificial heart, which requires constant energy and stimulation to maintain a beating heart rate. Hence, his need to beat up every thing that moves past him, around him and in his line of vision. Ending with a confrontation with a floating talking head that ordered the hit on Chev. Are you with me? At times you will ask where you are and what are you doing watching this. But it is worth it, as a film it is a collection of parodies of the best showdowns in cinema history; everything from spaghetti westerns to Bruce Lee to gangsters to the amazingly cheesy Godzilla rip-off when Chev grows into this monster Chev (with extended chin) and fights this nemesis who is Chinese, because he is of Far Eastern distinction it works as a joke. But the best scene and the scene with enough front to get away with it, is when Chev gets to Hollywood racecourse and is losing energy. Chev collapses on the track and Eve (Amy Smart) gets to him and helps stimulate Chev. What follows is the funniest sex scene since Team America. As a race takes place, the crowd in attendance end up watching this intense sex scene – they do the wheelbarrow, we cut to a picture of a wheelbarrow. Then as the horses jump over them in ecstasy, we get a shot of a horse’s penis as Eve arrives at rapture; it is funnier because the image of Chev and Eve’s naked bum and genital areas are blurred out. It’s brash and on occasions grotesque, but has the ability to laugh at itself knowing it is in on the joke with Chev turning to the camera sometimes. Fans of Statham will love it, he is quite brilliant at doing this character and this style of film – great late night entertainment and leave your brain at the door film.
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