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DVDfever.co.uk – Crank 2: High Voltage Blu-ray reviewDom Robinson reviews
Lions Gate Home EntertainmentBlu-ray: 
DVD:
Soundtrack:
- Cert:
- Running time: 106 minutes
- Year: 2009
- Cat no: OPTBD1562R0
- Released: August 2009
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 12 plus extras
- Picture: 1080p High Definition
- Sound: DTS 5.1 HD Master Audio Lossless
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English
- Widescreen: 1.85:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: BD50
- Price: £24.99 (Blu-ray); £17.99 (DVD)
- Extras: Deleted Scenes, Interviews, Script to Screen comparison, Trailer, Webisodes, Audio commentary, Audio description
- Vote and comment on this film:View Comments
Directors:
- Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor
(Crank, Crank 2: High Voltage, Gamer)
Producers:
- Gary Lucchesi, Tom Rosenberg, Skip Williamson, Richard S. Wright and Richard Wright
Screenplay:
- Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor
Music:
- Mike Patton
Cast :
- Chev Chelios: Jason Statham
Eve Lydon: Amy Smart
Doc Miles: Dwight Yoakam
Venus: Efren Ramirez
Dark Chocolate: Julanne Chidi Hill
Orlando: Reno Wilson
Don Kim: Keone Young
Johnny Vang: Art Hsu
Chico: Joseph Julian Soria
Ria: Bai Ling
El Huron: Clifton Collins Jr
Poon Dong: David Carradine
Randy: Corey Haim
Karen Chelios: Geri Halliwell
Young Chev: Billy Unger
Talk Show Host: Jamie Harris
Fish Halman: John de Lancie
Psychiatrist: Lauren Holly
Female porn stars: Monique Alexander, Jenna Haze, Kate Mulligan
Male porn stars: Nick Manning, Ron Jeremy, Ed Powers, Larry Eudene
In the original Crank,Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) was poisoned and left having to keep his adrenaline levels up to stop the toxinfrom killing him. However, even after bumping off the bad guys he still didn’t get any sort of treatment, much less anantidote, and the film ended with him having fallen out the sky, onto a car and bounced off into the road, just by thecamera.
I’d never got round to watching the DVD I had of this for ages, sosince I knew I’d be reviewing this title I got it out and watched it less than a week before viewing the sequel. And onething sprang to mind in that Amy Smart, also here reprising her role as his girlfriend, Eve, was still hotter thanthe sun, although all she ever did in the original was to have sex with Statham in public.
Anyway, this film picks up from where that one left off… at which point, before the ambulance can get to him, Cheliosis picked up by some men in a van and taken to an operating theatre where he’s opened up by some dodgy Chinese surgeonsand his heart is replaced with some bizarre mechanical alternative. However, they’re not intending to do him any favours- they just want to carve him up for organs… starting with his privates – and he finds this out as he comes to, atwhich point he jumps to his feet and kicks ass to get out of there. He’ll need to get his own heart back though because,as Doc Miles (Dwight Yoakam) confirms, the artificial ones are only meant to keep you alive for a couple of dayswhile you await a transplant. Oh, and he shouldn’t do anything strenuous, either!
Chelios has got to keep his heart charged up to stop him from dying, and before long he loses his only advantage of astorage battery of some sort which gave him some extra juice to keep going… even though it was rather a crap batteryanyway. Along the way, Eve turns up as a pole dancer – and sex rears its head again, Johnny Vang (Art Hsu) isthe main baddie who our hero will need to sort out by the end of the film, and although Kaylo was dead by the end ofthe original film, along comes his brother, Venus (also played by Efren Ramirez), who has Full Body Tourettes…
David Carradine plays the elderly Poon Dong, whose relevance will be revealed along the way, but as Doc Miles tellshim, “Confucius say – Karma’s a bitch.” – and it certainly was for Carradine whose game of autoerotic asphyxiationwent way too far back in June this year…
The first film was a fair bit tighter than this, whereas this sequel’s paper-thin plot is stretched out with an overlongsequence between Eve and her boss, Randy (Corey Haim, looking a fair bit different here!), as well as a youngChev on a Jeremy Kyle-style chat show, appearing alongside his mother (played by Geri Halliwell), all to thepoint where this makes you forget what was happening to the present-day Chev and it just drags during these timesas they’re non-essential and should’ve been included only as DVD extras. There’s also the pointless inclusion ofRia – a tarty whore played by Bai Ling (below right) – and Venus.
Hence, while the first film was a decent 7/10, this sequel is a mediocre 5/10.
Shot on video and with some bizarre effect applied to make the image look intentionally a little stilted, along withall manner of other weird pop video-style elements, the one sure thing is that the film is presented in a 1.85:1anamorphic widescreen frame and it’s as crisp and sharp as you’d expect a Blu-ray image to look, with outdoor scenes- and there’s plenty of those – looking bright and colourful.For the record, I’m watching on a Panasonic 37″ Plasma screen via a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player.
The sound is in DTS 5.1 and while there is a lot of gunfire, and some neat surround effects on occasion in otherareas, there are better demo discs out there that have a number of defining moments within their films as everythingrather mushes into one here.
The extras are as follows:
- Making Crank 2 (51:23):I looked at the audio commentary first and if you read my description of that, further down, you’ll see why it lookedmore like a ‘making of’ as that’s basically what you get here. Lots of clips from the film with chat over the top ofit from various cast and crew members – you know the drill with a ‘making of’ and big fans of this film will be pleasedthat this runs for over 50 mins.
- Crank 2: Take 2 (4:03):People and items left in shot accidentally are highlighted in this short piece. I didn’t spot any of them during thefilm, given the pace at which it runs.
- Audio Commentary:from the two directors plus other crew members, and you can either watch it the traditional way or ‘High Voltage’ modewhich shows the film in a small box while the rest of the screen is taken up with the various crew members andbehind-the-scenes shots during the sections they’re talking about. It’s more like an extended ‘making of’ so thatcomes across really well as a result.
- Remaining extras:At this point I’m going to throw this in here, as I’m at the end of my tether…
I’ve no idea what was up with the check disc that arrived, but sometimes the menus and film and extraswould appear, when selected. At other times I got a blank screen. It’s not me, I know that, but something was up with it. Perhapssometimes the menu structure shouldn’t be overly fancy, then these problems won’t occur? The main menu also takesforever to load up as a ‘high voltage’ sign appears and the meter going from green, to yellow, to red, takes so long tofill the last bit of the red bar that I thought the disc had stuck! Often, the only thing I could do was to switchthe machine off and start it up again! I must’ve done this 12-15 times in the space of watching the film and gettingthis far with the extras.
The remaining extras are a wrap party gag reel, trailer and something called ‘MOLOG’ which looks like some way ofconnecting to the internet to chat about movie stuff online. Umm… there’s already Digital Spy and other forums forthat so why would I try and do it through my keyboardless Blu-ray player?
There’s also some ‘LG Live’ stuff which connects your player via the internet to Twitter and Facebook so you can sharewith the world the films you’ve been watching… Not sure why exactly I’d do that, either, when I can just post linkson there instead.
Oh, hang on, I tried one more time and got the gag reel (3:26) to work, but then the menu went blank again.That’s enough of that. I see from Amazon that others are having similar problems on other players. Can Lions Gate pleaseexplain just what they’ve done with this disc?
When the menu works, it’s hi-energy music and busy images all mixing together. There are English subtitles but thechaptering could do with a few more as there’s only 16 throughout the film.
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.