2006 - CRANK, 2009 - CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE, taking the Crank viewing challenge.

Crank - What does one make of this crazy mess of a film   Directed like they gave some ADD kid a video camera, the film's spastic action scenes and camera work made me nauseous with all the bobbing and running around.  Clearly this film was not meant to be taken remotely seriously.  The humor is low brow Three Stooges style with a lot of gun play and blood thrown in. 

Crank is also an extremely racist and misogynistic film with something to offend everyone.  Particularly hard to watch is the treatment of the female lead Amy Smart.  The directors Neveldine and Taylor seem to get off on humiliating her especially in a public sex scene.

Bottom line, didn't care for the over the top Crank. 

Crank:  High Voltage - Since Crank made money a sequel was required and this film is really something to see.  Take Crank and exaggerate it exponentially if that is even possible and you have Crank:  High Voltage.

Everything is now completely played as a huge joke.  This time out, Jason Statham does an imitation of Godzilla, Amy Smart manages to humiliate herself even more than was possible with a sex scene during a horse race.  The actor Bai Lng plays some kind of bizarre crack whore, who is subtitled throughout the film even though she speaks English and on and on it goes with cinematic quotes from They Saved Hitler's Brain of all things.

Unfortunately you have to sit through Crank to enjoy the dementia of Crank:  High Voltage but it's well worth the trouble to see something as insane as this film.  Crank: High Voltage is an example of the old saying "nothing succeeds like excess," or something like that.

This film is totally crazied.

Crank, 93 minutes

Crank: High Voltage, 96 minutes

2009 - GAMER, should have been stupid fun, just stupid not fun.

 

Computer chips in our brain's are allowing us to be controlled by teenage and weirdo computer game players.  They control criminals and make them kill each other for real, in a game televised to people all over the world. It's the Survivor TV show except everyone is killing each other instead of looking for the immunity totem. 

 Who says the world will end up like this, bi-polar writer/directors Neveldine and Taylor say so and they are intent on presenting their deep concepts in the most obscure manner possible.  The color is either oversaturated or desaturated.  The action is either over the top or more over the top.  The acting is virtually nonexistent since the cast has to work at staying in the camera frame because the camera NEVER stands still.

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There was probably a decent idea for an entertaining action movie in this hyper incoherent mess of a movie but the action scenes started to give me a headache with all the hand held jumping, shaking, rattling camera work, explosions and noise.   

The only thing interesting in this film is that actor from Dexter whose name escapes me.  He plays a creepy Bill Gates or Steve Jobs kind of guy intent on taking over the world (see Sherlock Holmes).  He's actually very funny and apparently figured out that this film was just a big stupid piece of crap and aimed his performance that way.

95 minutes.  Written by Neveldine & Taylor.