“Crank 2: High Voltage” — When it comes to choosing the greatest action star of this decade, some may argue in favor of Muay Thai expert Tony “Ong Bak” Jaa (“Oh, look at me, I can knock out an elephant with one kick”), but for my money, pound-for-pound, the undisputed champ of action flicks is Jason Statham.
Statham’s movies are so vulgar, the violence so ridiculously over-the-top, that I just sit there, mouth agape, wondering what combination of alcohol, crystal meth and presumably some form of fish paralyzer the writers were on when they came up with some of this stuff.
Which brings us to “Crank 2: High Voltage,” the super-charged sequel to 2006’s “Crank.” The film begins where the previous movie ended, with Chev Chelios (Statham) falling out of a helicopter to his death. Or so we were led to believe. Chelios wakes up to find himself surrounded by Chinese doctors, and they’re performing open-heart surgery on him — while he watches! The Chinese surgeon puts out a cigarette on Chev’s heart and then installs an artificial heart runs on power supplied by a battery belt.
When Chev wakes up again, he finds out that the Chinese gangster buddies of the dude he killed in the first movie are planning to harvest his organs; so Chev escapes and goes on the hunt to find his heart. Problem is, he needs to keep the batteries charged or his artificial heart will stop.
What follows is 90 minutes of high-octane sex, violence and bad jokes. “Crank 2” is so macho that by the end of the film, your Man Parts will have grown their own set of Man Parts.
“Important Things With Demetri Martin” Season One — This is one of the more entertaining shows to come out of Comedy Central in a long time. Using a mix of stand-up and sketches, Demetri Martin uses his gentle, silly and almost child-like view of the world to tackle such Universal Themes as … chairs and games and other stuff.
“The Office” Season 5 — “The Office” is one of those shows (like “30 Rock”) that I never watch when it’s on the TV. I wait till the entire season comes out and then hunker down for a weekend and watch the entire season in one go. So, I can’t tell you about this set because I haven’t seen it yet. No spoilers, people!
TV SERIES
“Parks & Recreation” Season One
“Fringe” The Complete First Season
“Worst Week” The Complete Series
“The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” The Complete First Season
“Criminal Minds” The Complete Fourth Season
“Harper’s Island” The DVD Edition
“Mr. Belvedere” Season Three
“One Foot in the Grave” The Complete Series
© 2009 King Features Synd., Inc.