Today I fire up my suspension of disbelief engines to tackle a movie I could have hit at the theaters but just didn’t manage to get to, Crank 2: High Voltage.

When we last left our hero, Chev Chelios, he had just fallen out of a helicopter onto the streets of Los Angeles several hundred feet below.  This would kill pretty much anyone short of a cartoon character, but not Chev.  He was apparently saved by timely medical intervention, and even the film itself believes this is just ridiculous storytelling.  Seriously, it will SAY SO, in a brilliantly delivered deadpan by no less than Q himself, John De Lancie.

But this same timely medical intervention ended with Chev getting his heart removed and replaced with a mechanical one that requires regular recharge.  Thus the theme of THIS round of Crank–Chev must find as many open electrical sources as possible to keep his heart pumping, so he can find his original model.

After just thirty minutes with Crank 2: High Voltage, the only question that ran through my mind was how much of what was somebody on to write this?  I’ve never seen so much lunacy in one place since, well, since I don’t know when.

This movie is the new gold standard for “cataclysmically screwed up”.  I thought the Japanese had weird movies–not anymore.  Crank 2: High Voltage beats them all.  My former gold standard was a Japanese import called “Crazy Lips”, and that one…well…you really have to see it to believe it.  But when I saw Bai Ling beat the hell out of some fat dude’s crotch with a bicycle and then refer to Chev as her “shiny lunch box” within about the same ten minutes, I knew that logic and sanity had packed a lunch and left town.

And you may rest assured that the rest of the movie doesn’t get any more believable.  It’s ninety minutes of nonstop over the top from beginning to end.  If anything, it probably stretches things entirely too far.  It’s more like a strange live action cartoon than a real movie.

But still, you have to admit, it’s pretty entertaining.  Admittedly the plot couldn’t be more bizarre, but it certainly packs the thrills and laughs.  At the end of the day, isn’t that exactly what we’re after?

The Screenhead Ten Scale, thusly, hands over an eight out of ten to this wildly preposterous action laugh riot.