Crank 2: High Voltage

Actors;  Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Dwight Yoakam, Efren Ramirez, Corey Haim, Bai Ling
Rating:  5 out of 10, a total train wreck (I mean they cast both Haim and Ling in this) of a movie that was such a disappointment after the first Crank movie which was so good.  All the same characters are back, even the ones killed in the first movie.  It's basically the same story but without any of the thought and charm of the first movie.  Statham is Chev Chelios who somehow survived a high altitude fall from a helicopter onto a city street that ended the last movie.  He's had his heart stolen, literally, and must recover it from a Chinese gangster.  Now Chelios must keep recharging his artificial heart with static electricity while he kills his way across L.A.  What was so cool about the original was the single minded drive of Chelios as he spent the last minutes of his life trying to kill the guy who poisoned him.  Now we have Chelios as an almost Jason Vorhees type character that literally can’t be killed.  The directors obviously had some studio oversight on the first one that quelled some of their worst instincts and produced a cool, niche movie.  Due to the success of the first movie those constraints were apparently taken off and we now have some of their worst ideas in full view.  Did we really need to see the Latino gangster cut his own nipples off?  They did seem to have a lot of fun making the movie as the out takes during the final credits attest but they should have spent more time in the editing room.  Maybe the film makers were just reacting to the earlier constraints by thumbing their noses at those constraints and just seeing how far they could push the envelope.  They push it pretty far.  It is fun to watch and try to identify all the actors making really minor cameos throughout the movie.
MVP:  Yoakam as the Doc Miles giving Chelios advice over the phone on how to survive and performing heart transplant procedures in his living room