Crank: High Voltage (2009)

When Crank arrived in 2006, directed by the writing and directing duo Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, it carved out a peculiar little niche for itself: a throwback to 1980s action excess, shot on handheld digital cameras with a music-video restlessness that felt genuinely unusual for a mainstream studio release. It was rowdy, self-aware, and apparently profitable enough for Lionsgate and Lakeshore Entertainment to greenlight a follow-up. Three years later, Neveldine and Taylor returned with Crank: High Voltage, picking up almost immediately where the first film left off. The premise dispenses with subtlety from the opening frames: hitman Chev Chelios, who by any reasonable logic should be dead, wakes up to find his heart has been surgically removed by a Chinese crime syndicate and replaced with an artificial pump running on a battery. To survive long enough to retrieve the original, he must keep his body continuously charged with jolts of electricity, by any means available. It is, to be fair, exactly the kind of logistical nonsense the franchise has always been proud of.

Neveldine and Taylor had built their approach around physical provocation: handheld cameras on rollerblades, a colour palette pushed to near-abstraction, and editing rhythms closer to a video game than a conventional thriller. High Voltage, produced again through the same studio partnership with additional involvement from RadicalMedia, runs for 96 minutes and makes no concessions to restraint at any point during them. Jason Statham, who had by this point established himself as the reliable engine of several mid-budget action pictures (including Death Race, released the same year), returns as Chelios, a role that asks him to be physically present and perpetually furious in roughly equal measure. Amy Smart reprises her role as Eve, Dwight Yoakam returns as the laconic Dr. Miles, and Efren Ramirez is back as the hapless Kaylo. The casting carries a certain continuity with the first film, which was presumably part of the appeal for returning audiences, though whether that loyalty was rewarded is another matter entirely.

Statham's career trajectory at this point is worth a moment's consideration. He had spent the better part of a decade building a particular brand of polished but unremarkable genre work, reliable at the box office without ever quite crossing into prestige territory. The Chelios role suited him precisely because it demanded commitment over range, and in fairness he has never been a man to phone it in. The supporting cast here functions largely as furniture around his performance, there to be reacted to rather than developed. High Voltage arrived at a moment when maximalist action cinema was finding its feet again, before the Marvel era fully absorbed the conversation, which gives it a certain period-piece quality in retrospect, even if that quality is roughly equivalent to finding a can of Red Bull at the back of a drawer.

Crank: High Voltage is basically the first film’s wild younger sibling who didn’t learn anything from rehab. It's just louder, dumber, and running on electricity instead of adrenaline. Jason Statham returns as Chev Chelios, now with an artificial heart that needs constant charging (literally), and the whole movie becomes a two-hour scramble to stay plugged in. It’s still got that same hyper-kinetic, sensory-overload style (flashing lights, frantic editing, Statham sprinting half-naked through Chinatown) but this time, the novelty’s worn off. The first Crank felt outrageous and inventive. This one is just outrageous. It doesn’t surprise you; it just escalates the absurdity for the sake of it. Electrocuting himself on power lines, getting chased by organ harvesters, having a fight on a moving truck again. It’s the same formula, same energy, same “don’t think, just watch” mentality, but without the freshness that made the original even a little special. That said, it’s not boring. If you’re in the right mood (tired, tipsy, or just craving something utterly ridiculous) it can work as decent “turn your brain off” cinema. Statham commits fully (as always), and there’s a certain charm in how completely it embraces the stupid. But as a sequel, it’s lazy. No real evolution, no new ideas, just more of the same, cranked to eleven. Mildly entertaining, entirely forgettable.

I'll be honest, I came into this one with fairly calibrated expectations, and it still managed to feel thinner than I'd anticipated. The first film had a scrappiness that gave it some genuine personality, and you can read more about how that holds up in my write-up of Crank. High Voltage just doesn't have that same energy to burn, despite going to considerable lengths to pretend otherwise. If you want a point of comparison for action filmmaking that similarly throws everything at the wall, my thoughts on Hardcore Henry might be worth a look, another film that bets heavily on style and pays out mixed dividends. For all its noise, Crank: High Voltage is the kind of film you remember watching more than you remember anything that actually happened in it.

Rating: ★★½  | Year: 2009  | Watched: 2025-09-03

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Trailer

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from Mark Neveldine: Crank (2006)
More with Jason Statham: Death Race (2008) · Crank (2006) · Snatch (2000)
More from the 2000s: Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) · Daredevil (2003) · Apocalypto (2006)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)
More thriller: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Angst (1983) · The Long Walk (2025) · Punishment Park (1971)