Crank (2006)

After watching the trailer for Crank 2 and nearly cracking up with the ridiculous concept of the movie and the gratuitous violence and cussing it promised, I realized it was a huge flaw on my bad movie fan resumée that I never watched the first Crank. I've always heard a lot about it, so why had I not seen it yet? It was time to finally give Crank a chance, so last night me and Cosmic prepared ourselves for some brainless fun and popped in Crank.

The makers of Crank found the golden ticket for being able to inject a movie full of senseless violence and thrills, and at the same time have no one question what happens. The story revolves aound a hitman called Chev Chelios, who finds out he's been injected with some crazy Chinese poison that slows his heartrate and will ultimately kill him... unless he keeps his adrenaline pumping at extremely high levels. That explains all that needs to be explained in his movie: why is Chelios driving high-speed through a mall? Why, he can't stop the adrenaline. Why is Chelios standing bare-assed on top of a moving police motorcycle? Obviously, to keep his heart rate has high as possible. There's a lot of crazy stuff going on in this movie, but that's all the explaining you need: Chelios is trying to stop death.

Jason Statham does what he does best, which his punch guys in the mouth/shooting guys in the head while looking crazy as all hell and swearing his mouth off. He does pratically the same part in all of his movies, but no one expects him to be Daniel Day-Lewis. As long as he's punching dudes, it's alright. The pace of the movie is as fast as Chelios needs his heart to be - it never slows down. The story is pretty unexistant, but who would see Crank for the story anyway? The editing was actually pretty nifty, superior to what one would expect to see on such a brainless action flick.

All in all, Crank is like GTA embodied in a movie: fast-paced, violent, insane and hilarious. I was laughing for the most part of the movie at how crazy and ridiculous everything was - but entertaining at the same time. It was a cool action movie, and a great pick for a brainless Friday night.

Also, since I already knew about Crank 2, the ending failed to surprise me. But I wasn't in it for the story anyway.