I loved Crank a lot. As excerpted from last year’s "Best Of" list, where it ranked as #11 of 2006:
"The most manic and fucking insane major release of the year, this little bastard is amazingly crafted entertainment,
fueled by genius and powered by nitrous oxide and semen. Jason Statham
spends an hour and a half being the baddest, baldest action hero
looking for adrenalin you’ll ever see. Without rules, action films are
capable of so much, and this is proof of it. Stay through the credits
too.
Current Rating: 8.0 out of 10
Contributing
Factors: The most playful and inventive filmmaking in town. Jason Statham kicking all the ass he can muster. Video game undercurrents.
Performance to
Savor: The Transporter.
P.R. CHUD.com
Pull-Quote: “If you don’t enjoy this you belong in Amanda Plummer.”
I’ve shown it to bunches of people on DVD and though some haven’t totally gotten it, the ones that did really did. Now comes word from Empire Online that not only is a sequel coming, but it’s coming soon. The inventive and jaw-dropping team of Brian Taylor and Mark Neveldine had this to say in their interview with UK powerhouse:
"It’s going to be more sexual, more violent – more of everything," laughs Taylor. "We realise with a movie like Crank, you can’t do a sequel and do 60% or 70% of what the original was. You have to go twice as hard. So that’s what we’re going to do. If we’re going to live up to the first one with the sequel – we’re taking it WAY past the point of the first one."
Better yet, the thing’s going to start shooting in April, which means we may get to see the thing by the end of the year. Neveldine/Taylor came out of the gate swinging with the first one, investing it in a really terrific confidence and lunacy that makes the film one of the principal examples of how we’re entering a new age in the world of film directors who have had the benefit of the amazing toolbox offered by technology, the know-how to use it, and the many mistakes of the 90’s and early 00’s music video influenced directors as a template of what not to do. These guys are mad creative and their style lives between the hyper stylized and vacant world of promotional videos and the aggressively artistic world of modern auteur filmmaking.
Crank 2, or whatever it’ll be called… is sort of a big deal. If they can pull this off and if the story of Chev Chelios still works, the world will have to accept these guys as a major force, Jason Statham as a keeper, and be open to the possibility of a new wing to the action genre: Video Game Movies Not Based on Video Games.