CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE - ridonkulous

Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) is an East End hitman who inexplicably lives in LA and dates a ditzy stripper called Eve (Amy Smart). In the original CRANK flick aforementioned triads injected him with an adrenaline-inhibitor. As a result, Chelios had to run round town after the anecdote, periodically re-charging his heart with adrenaline by, among other things, engaging in random outdoor sex. In this sequel, the triads are so impressed with his capacity for survival, that they decide to transplant the famous Chelios heart into an aged gangster (David Carradine). Chelios wakes after surgery, wired up to an external battery, with only a few hours to get his old heart back and into his body.

The one good thing about CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE is that it knows, nay it glorifies, in how ridiculous it is. It's a movie that is deliberately designed to be balls-out ludicrous - more guns, more violence, more insane out-door sex, more crazy Asian gangsters, more revenge. It even has the juvenile wit to cast Corey Haim. It's like watching a live action video game on fast forward. There's little plot and less care for political correctness. Asians are Chinks, women are whores, and the audience is expected to laugh when a stripper gets shot in her fake tits and they deflate.

I laughed.

But I didn't laugh as much as I laughed during the original movie. Call me sentimental, but some of the innocence has gone. CRANK 1 was a simple low-budget cheap-thrills action flick starring Jason Statham. Statham's career is simply absurd: he's basically a skinny bald kid from Essex who can't act but has somehow muscled up and become a B-movie star. CRANK was the perfect vehicle for Statham - mirroring the absurdity that is his continuing success with its drug-induced aesthetic. Still, for all that, it had a semblance of a plot, and there was the thrill of getting to know these absurd characters. The sequel is just more of the same, but so much more that it's dizzying and, finally, boring. The movie builds to a crescendo with an open-air sex scene and then becomes plain dumb. The precise depth of dumbness is achieved in a pointless Jerry Springer parody sketch with a young actor failing to replicate Chelios' East End accent and Geri Halliwell aka Ginger Spice as his ChavMum.

CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE is on release in the UK, US, Germany, Kazakhstan, Russia, Estonia, Lithuania, Taiwan and Greece. It opens next weekend in Iceland, Bulgaria and Romania. It opens in Turkey on May 8th; in the Czech Republic on June 23rd; in Sweden on July 31st; in France and Australia on August 20th; in Belgium and the Netherlands on September 10th; in Brazil and Spain on September 18th; and in Argentina on September 24th.

CRANK - if Guy Ritchie pre-Kabbalah and LeTerrier had a love-child, and that love-child had Medical Coke, a grudge and a gun

CRANK is about the most mindless high-octane balls-out fun you can have in a multiplex. It's visually audacious, witty, self-mocking and has one of the most shamelessly commercial endings I have seen in a while. On an intellectual level, I feel I should despise its deep vein of misogyny and superficial thrill-seeking, but the movie feels so tongue-in-cheek and does what it does so well, I just love it. LOVE IT.

CRANK bites heavily on the style of Guy Ritchie before Ritchie bit on Madonna's bad cinematic karma. But it has a much simpler plot than Ritchie ever dishes out and amps up the violence and pace. We are in the murky underworld of L.A. and Jason Statham is a freelance hitman called, improbably, Chev Chelios. Chev has been injected by a lethal Beijing Injection whereby as soon as he lets his body slows down, he dies. Cue lots of running around and shooting people and outdoor sex in a bid to keep the adrenaline up long enough to settle all scores. Amy Smart plays Chev's dappy girlfriend. She serves as the straight man against which most of the comedy in the movie plays. SHAUN OF THE DEAD style, she can't quite believe her boyfriend is a zombie, sorry, hitman, and faffs around with her lip-gloss when she should be running for her life. Awesome.

CRANK is on release in Ireland, the US and Turkey. It opens in the Philippines, Greece, Denmark and Estonia next week and in Germany, Iceland and Latvia the week after that. It opens in Spain on October 6th, Sweden on October 13th and in Argentina on November 16th.

NAPOLEON DYNAMITE - quirky to the point of genius

NAPOLEON DYNAMITE is, I suspect, the kind of movie that you either love or hate. But for me, this movie is kooky, quirky and eccentric to the point of genius. It is sweet, hopeful and yet never schmaltzy or obvious. And it's key message: that there is someone out there for all of us, is a fantastic way to start the year. The movie is a super low-budget indie flick by Jared Hess. And I mean Indie in the fullest sense of the word: from the eccentric characters in boon-dock America, to the pop-culture references, to the focus on the geeks and freaks at High School, to the cooler than thou sound-track, NAPOLEON DYNAMITE wears its Indie heart on its sleeve. However, all these features are never grating and, compared to some recent movies, NAPOLEON DYNAMITE never feels like it is trying too hard. Indeed, the story seems to unwind without effort and enchant us. The eponymous hero is a high school nerd, with big glasses, big teeth and a righteous 'fro. He says "gosh" a lot, draws cartoons of cross-breed animals, and is the star of the movie in his mind To wit, 'You know, there's like a butt-load of gangs at this school. This one gang kept wanting me to join because I'm pretty good with a bo staff." Genius. Napoleon is brought to life in a comic performance of real subtelty and brilliance by newbie Jon Heder. I have no doubt that his dance routine is destined to become as famous as Ricky Gervais' routine in British cult classic, THE OFFICE. The story, such as it is, follows Napoleon as he gets his first girlfriend, who is equally geeky. We also see Napoleon's brother Kip hook up with an internet date and Napoleon help his best mate, Pedro, get the student presidency. What links all these stories is the triumph of outsiders over the conventional without compromise. Like I said, this movie is one you either love or hate so it's hard to recommend. But if you find that off-beat comedy sets you giggling, you should check it out.

NAPOLEON DYNAMITE played at Sundance and London 2004 and is currently on release in the UK. It opens in Germany on May 18th 2005.