crank 2: high voltage

Last week I reviewed (or randomly dribbled about, whichever you prefer) Lesbian Vampire Killers.

My main thought was that it had gotten a critical panning, but that I'd actually kinda enjoyed it.

This week's movie kinda follows the same pattern. I remember there being quite a few bad reviews, most especially I remember comments along the lines of it being not as good as the first.

Those reviews are wrong.

I loved the first Crank - it was delightfully and wilfully bonkers, but not in a comedic sense, although it was plenty funny. No, the bonkers-ness was in the pacing - the film absolutely pelted along, barely giving you any time to stop and think.

The basic feel of the first film was that of a video game. I'm not unique in thinking this, indeed, the game actually has bits of computer animation in it. But it's the nature of these bits of computer animation that really clued you in as to what Crank was.

Back in the early days of home computing the games were more anarchic and bonkers. Modern day gaming is a huge multi-billion pound business and a lot of the games tend to focus on being realistic and are horribly complicated to make. Back then, when computers were low on power anyone could make a 'state of the art' game.

And that led to some truly daft ideas. I remember one game where your mission was essentially to go around being a bastard, playing tricks on people.

And that's what Crank was - it was the movie equivalent of that old computer game spirit.

Crank 2 then cranks this basic idea up (ho ho ho, I'm a comic genius) and expands it. Crank 2 is not only a bonkers video game, but it's also throwing in all sorts of other stuff that was around in my youth too.

And some of it is bizarre - I mean, there's one scene that apes the men in rubber suits antics of the Godzilla movies. The characters wear caricature masks of themselves and do battle, destroying the miniature set by falling on it in the process.

But there's also an element of taking things up a gear (whoops, missed another opportunity for a cranking gag). Think of it this way - with the first film they were trying to make a full-on 18 certificate film.

And they succeeded with this. However, imagine they hadn't and they'd actually ended up with a 15 certificate. So they then make Crank 2 and so the thought process is something like "let's make it as extreme as we can so that it can't possibly end up with a 15".

And this they do - there's more violence, more swearing, more sex and nudity. About the only thing it doesn't push is drug abuse.

So yeah, I'd recommend you watch the first film if you haven't and if you like that then this is a very worthy sequel.