1/5 Manly Men Movie II - includes several MOVIE SPOILERS
  by S. B. Dupre (Shadowland)
I decried the treatment and presentment of women in the original CRANK without seeming to notice there is no one in either movie, man OR woman, who is anything but trashy. I guess the women in glass bowls distracted me. Regardless, we have more of the same here, just no bowls this time. Mostly it's trying to figure out why suddenly there is no longer any poison in Chev's bloodstream slowing killing him after seeing him literally scrapped off the pavement with a shovel and dumped into the truck of a car. Then on an operating table with his various parts being cut out and sold. He seems to do well with having his heart removed but objects, as any manly man would, to having his "goodies" removed, leaps up, slams the doctors around and escapes. Most folks after heart surgery (much less having it completely removed) would have to have a lot of time to recover but not this guy. He's up and around like Superman. But wait, there's more! We go from amusing, to silly amusing, to silly, to (MOVIE SPOILER) two main characters turned into CG Godzillas battling it out in a miniturized power plant - I kid you not.

Appalled at the way Amy Smart was treated in the first I'd concluded there had been script changes because I couldn't understand why someone as talented as Smart would consent to the China Town public sex exhibition. Apparently, I was wrong again! We take public sex to a whole new level when Chev and Eve "do it" on a race track, complete with screaming crowds and at least one aroused horse bounding over them. (Oh good, we're back to YEECH!) Dwight Yoakam once again amazes with his performance as Chev's private physician.

There is amusing and there is completely idiotic. We being with one, and about 2/3's of the way through this thing pretending to be entertainment find ourselves deeply intrenched in the other. My advice is, if you must have Statham -- and I'm one of those -- stick with CRANK and tell yourself over and over, "There is no CRANK II. There is no CRANK II. It's an illusion...."


4/5 Didn't live up to it's previous
  by T. Barker (Salt Lake, Utah)
Good movie, but it's only an hour long! It seems throughout the movie that they even struggled to make it that long. They repeated lots of things and scenes from the first movie, so you're going to be watching a lot of the same things over again. Statham is great in it, and it's a good movie to see at least once. Definitely not amazing like the first though.

5/5 Proceed With Caution!!
  by Patricia Laverty
Crank: High Voltage is the superior of the two films not because it knows it's a second helping of something that is all empty calories, but because it's simply more than the other one
You're liable to watch the whole thing with an expression of bafflement on your face, surprised, delighted, and alarmed by what you're seeing.
The result, an eye-popping strobe of flesh and blood, is as visually stunning as it is absurdly offensive, sure to thrill some while leaving others in a state of outrage-induced catatonia.
If someone was charged with creating a graphic, bizarre cartoon for adults, that someone might conceive of 'Crank 2: High Voltage,' one of the most insanely outrageous movies ever made


5/5 Energized Insanity, Not for All Tastes!
  by Benjamin J Burgraff (Las Vegas)
Take two really, really warped filmmakers (Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor), an action star (Jason Statham) with a finely-tuned sense of the absurd, and a beautiful leading lady (Amy Smart) willing to have sex in public places...VERY public places...and you have the basic ingredients of "Crank 2: High Voltage", a gross yet hilarious trainwreck of a movie than actually succeeds in outdoing the insanity of the original "Crank". To say this film ISN'T for all audiences is an understatement; there is something here to offend nearly everybody! But if you have a 'gonzo' streak when it comes to action films, want to see really cutting-edge camerawork and editing, and don't mind an implausable plot, rampant bad taste and even worse language, you'll have a ball!

The storyline is simple; Chev Chelios (Statham) survived the thousand-foot fall from the helicopter at the end of "Crank", is kidnapped by Chinese who surgically remove his heart (replacing it with a temporary artificial one, until they can harvest his other organs...including his "Big English" attribute), but he recovers in time to beat up the surgical team and escape, spending the rest of the film brawling, shooting, and, uh, other things, while struggling to keep the temporary heart charged, in a race against time to recover his own.

This is a film that even Neveldine and Taylor admits was an excuse to see just how much they could get away with (including legendary porn stars on strike...a climactic fight in slow-motion, wearing caricatured masks...hot passion in the middle of a racetrack, with thousands watching...a talking, disembodied head...David Carradine as a very horny 100-year-old Chinese man...and wait to you see the variety of power sources Chelios utilizes), so keep a very open mind!

5/5 Depends on your tastes
  by Robert J. Rankin (bottom of a lake)
If you liked the first on this is for you, if you want mayhem with no real grip on reality, this is for you. If you are looking for any kind of realism or need suspension of disbelief please move on. this movie is ridiculous and truly innovative when it comes to editing. there are things going on in this movie that make you feel like you've been slipped drugs. It is an visual and audio experiences, but please turn of the adult in your head for the next 90 min and enjoy.