Crank: High Voltage (2009)

Here's the thing about sequels to genuinely mad films: they almost always make the same mistake. They see what the audience loved, strip out the surprise, and just do more of it. Louder. Bigger. Dumber. Crank: High Voltage is the perfect case study in exactly that failure, and the frustrating part is that it's not even unwatchable. It's just... hollow.

I had a pretty good time with Crank. It was stupid, yes, but it was inventively stupid. There was a genuine charge (no pun intended) to the way it threw Chev Chelios into an impossible situation and just kept turning up the heat. It felt like filmmakers actually having fun with a ridiculous concept rather than cynically grinding the gears. This sequel? It's the first film's wild younger sibling who didn't learn anything from rehab. Same house rules, same chaos, just no discipline whatsoever underneath it.

The setup this time is that Chelios, having somehow survived the events of the first film, now has an artificial heart that needs constant electrical charging to keep him alive. So off he goes again, sprinting half-naked through Chinatown, getting chased by organ harvesters, electrocuting himself on power lines and generally behaving like a man possessed. Jason Statham commits to all of it completely, as he always does, and you can't take that away from him. The man is incapable of phoning it in, even when the material absolutely deserves to be phoned in.

But commitment only gets you so far. The whole point of the first film was novelty. The joke worked because we hadn't seen it before. Watching Chelios careen through Los Angeles like a pinball, doing increasingly deranged things just to stay alive, was genuinely fresh. Here, we've already bought the ticket. We know the ride. And the directors seem to think the answer to that problem is volume, so they just crank everything up (pun very much intended this time) without asking whether any of it still lands.

The frantic editing, the flashing lights, the sensory overload style, it's all still there. But what's missing is any sense of real invention or escalation that actually goes somewhere new. Chelios fights on a moving vehicle again. He does something absurd to charge himself up again. The film ogles things it probably shouldn't for longer than it should. It mistakes escalating absurdity for creativity, and those are not the same thing. If you've seen Hardcore Henry, you'll know how thin that line is between breathless and exhausting, and High Voltage stumbles across it repeatedly.

I'll be honest: if you catch it in the right state, tired on a Friday night, a couple of pints in, brain thoroughly switched off, it can scratch an itch. There's a certain shameless charm to how completely it embraces its own stupidity. It never pretends to be anything other than what it is, and some nights that's enough. I can respect that on a purely base level.

But as a sequel, it's lazy. There's no evolution here, no new ideas, no attempt to justify its own existence beyond the fact that the first one made money. It's the same formula, same energy, same "don't think, just watch" mentality, served up without the freshness that made the original even a little special. Mildly entertaining in the moment, entirely forgettable by the time the credits roll.

Two and a half stars. Worth a watch if you loved the first one and have genuinely zero expectations. Otherwise, just rewatch Crank instead.

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

View on Letterboxd →

Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: ITVX Premium
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Stream: Philo · MovieSphere+ Amazon Channel · Howdy Amazon Channel
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US

Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.

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)