Crank 2: High Voltage (2009)

  People tell me my taste in movies is hard to pin down.  Movies they thought I would like, I hate and movies they thought I would hate, I love.  I say that they're just not paying attention but that's because it always makes perfect sense to me.

Every once in a while, though, I will watch something and think "I should hate this" but I don't.  This is Crank 2.  If you thought the first one was good fun but that the action was a little slow and the plot made too much sense, boy, are you going to like the sequel.

It picks up almost immediately after the first one ended, with a black van shoveling Chev Chelios' body (Jason Statham) off the street and carrying him off.  From there, his heart is removed and a temporary artificial one is implanted.  This heart runs off an electrical charge provided by an external battery pack which he almost immediately loses.  Hence the title, as he manages to find any source of electricity he can to power his fake heart until he can find his real one.  The bad guys in this are the Chinese Triad gangs, though there is also some involvement by a mysterious Mexican gangster named The Ferret (Clifton Collins, Jr.).  Amy Smart is back as his semi-retarded girlfriend, who is now a stripper going by the name of Lemon.  Bai Ling is a crack whore.  Efram Ramirez is playing the brother of the character he played in the first movie.  Dwight Yoakum is back as Chelios' personal doctor.  Yes, the country singer.

Sadly, this was also David Carradine's last role, playing the head of the Triad.  I say sadly not just because the man died shortly thereafter, but because his last character's name was Poon Dong.  That's a hell of a legacy.

Anyway, the movie is fast and loud and stupid but it's surprisingly fun to watch.