A Binge too Far #43: Action Goes Big with the Crank duo (2006 - 2009)

Jason Statham as Chev Chellios in Crank (2006)

Boasting guns showdown and nudity galore Crank (2006) was made on a modest $12 million budget and turned into an action phenomenon by grossing $42.9 million that guaranteed a 2009 sequel. We take a look at both of them.

 

Crank (2006) poster

Crank (2006)

 

Following a high-profile job he shouldn’t have performed, professional hit-man Chev Chellios (Jason Statham, no introduction needed) is in the form of revenge injected with a dodgy Chinese drug, which gives him a slow death that will last less than a day, unless he keeps his adrenaline pumping and slow it down, and he does so in spades by going on a binge to find the perpetrators while all hell breaks loose.

 

Written and directed by the credited Neveldine/Taylor team (the Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor duo) this is considered an action classic now, but it hasn’t aged too well visually as it was shot on video and the image looks rubbish now even to the most untrained pair of eyes. It lives up to its title though as the rock and metal soundtrack is cranked up to 11 and the music video-like editing is bombastic, to say the least, even if it looks like a bad copy of Quentin Tarantino film, at times.

 

It is essentially the high octane action version of Run Lola Run (1998) and it is salvaged by some very clever dialogue and its overall edginess as we see the ‘down and dirty’ protagonist snorting cocaine and dismembering his opponents. The problem though is that most of its humour seems very ‘politically incorrect’ these days and could be accused of homophobia and/or racism.

 

Crank: High Voltage (2009)

Crank: High Voltage (2009)

 

This time around the Chinese threat comes to Chev Chellios (returning Jason Statham) in the form of another high-profile Triad gangster that steals his heart (as in the vital organ) and transplants it to himself with the aid of some dodgy medical operation. The hero has very few hours to live with his artificial replacement organ and in order to make some time for himself and prolong his foreseeable death he must keep pumping high voltage adrenaline to himself, which he does in spades in the means of shootouts and car crashes.

 

The Neveldine/Taylor writing and directing duo return with this crazier and more expensive sequel (it was budgeted at $20 million), maintaining the bombastic rock soundtrack and the frenetic editing, but the action has become more comedic, so much in fact that it is bordering on Troma-type features (even Lloyd Kaufman and Ron Jeremy provide cameo appearances). The critics didn’t get a chance to see it (advance screenings were not made available, somewhat understandably so) but the fans loved it and it went on to gross $34.6 million, so the fact that we never saw another sequel (even a straight-to-video one) is strange.

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A Binge too Far #40: Ocean's Gigantic Thrills of The Meg duo (2018 - 2023)

Jason Statham in The Meg (2018)

The Meg (2018) poster

The Meg (2018)

 

A science research group is studying – on location – the Marianas Trench when they lose some of their crew to the deep and facing the sea’s biggest threat, namely the Megalodon. They have zero chance of surviving, until they bring the troubled diver Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham, no introduction needed) on board to save the day.

 

Based on Steve Alten’s ultra successful Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror (1997) – one of the very few books I cherished as a young reader – the rights of which were already purchased by Disney in the late 1990s (the project was stuck in development hell until now), and turned into screenplay form by Dean Georgaris, Jon Hoeber, and Erich Hoeber (it was directed by Jon Turteltaub), this is pure PG-13 fun, so don’t expect too much violence, as you can get much more of that on any regular SyFy shark movie, but what you’ll get is a lot more expensive action, with its $130 million. It went on to gross $530.2 million, so a sequel was inevitable, and we’ll have a look at that bellow.

 

The Meg 2: The Trench (2023)

The Meg 2: The Trench (2023)

 

Set a decade after the events of the first film (which was made a mere five years prior to this sequel), we join Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham, once again) as he fights organized crime with an emphasis on environmental pollution, until he is gathered by his old team to fight something literally bigger, a new oceanic threat.

 

Featuring inexplicably – for its massive $139 million budget – bad creature CGI effects, this sequel directed by Ben Wheatley is bombastic in terms of action, but is also as shallow as these things can get. It is popcorn entertainment though, and you can find many worse ways to kill a couple of hours. It grossed a stunning $397.7 million and discussions about another sequel are already happening.

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Cinema Head Cheese: Podshort! - The Fate of the Furious (Universal, 2017)

Kevin watches his first Fast and Furious movie, and he shares his thoughts while making a Vin Diesel face.

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Movie Review: The Expendables 2 (2012)

Directed by Simon West
Starring Sylvester Stallone, Liam Hemsworth and Randy Couture
Run Time: 103 minutes

The team from The Expendables is back in action once again and this time they sign on for a mission that looks like an easy paycheck for Barney and his band of old-school mercenaries. But things go sour, and one of their own is killed by a psychotic terrorist-for-hire. Hell bent for payback, they cut a swath of destruction through enemy territory and mow down everything in their path. In the midst of the mayhem, they must also shut down an unexpected threat in the nick of time- preventing five tons of weapons grade plutonium from falling into the wrong hands, as well as save a village that is being tortured and used as slave labor by the mercenaries.

Movie Review: 13 (2011, Blu-ray)

Not to be confused with the Catherine Hardwicke coming-of-age drama by the same name, 13 is actually a remake of the critically acclaimed Gela Babluani thriller 13 Tzameti. Babluani takes on the duty as director of the remake for a film he did just fine the first time. Can Babluani capture a wider audience with a cast that now includes Jason Statham, Ray Winstone, Ben Gazzarra and Mickey Rourke?

Buy 13 Blu-ray or DVD

Sam Riley (Control) plays young down-on-his-luck electrician who happens to find a piece of important mail in the house of one of his customers. The letter contains instructions and a cell phone that gives him the opportunity to jump into the shoes of a dead man who was just as unlucky and desperate as him. He's also no longer a man with a name - he's just number 13. Soon Sam is deep into the world of a dangerous high-stakes Russian roulette game.  Here he joins Ronald Lynn (Ray Winstone) and Jefferson (Mickey Rourke) as the trio do anything they can to avoid getting their brains splattered by fellow players.