“Someone’s always giving me the arse!”

Tits and Guns and Blood and Tits.

Jason Statham‘s big-dick energy once again sees him running rampage in Los Angeles streets, mowing down gangsters, and getting laid in public.

This movie’s predecessor, CRANK (2006) followed hitman Chev Chelios (Statham) after he was injected with a drug that would kill him if his adrenalin dropped below a certain level. Think SPEED on, uh, crank… It made for a ramped non-stop actioner as Chelios hunted the gangsters who injected him, whilst keeping his heart beating at suicide levels. Now, in CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE, a Chinese mob boss, impressed with the indestructible masculinity of Chelios’s heart, has taken it for himself and transplanted Chelios with a mechanical one that needs constant jolts of electricity to continue pumping – sending Chelios on another ultra-octane quest: chasing down his heart-nappers to get it back!

Sorry, did I mention CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE is batshit insane? The fact it doesn’t take itself seriously makes it blackly hilarious as well.

The Chinese mob boss Poon Dong (who else but David Carradine?!) doesn’t simply kill Chelios, due to the One-Line Plothole-Fix: to harvest all of Chelios’s manly organs one at a time.

HIGH VOLTAGE features new brain-addled characters, like hooker Bai Ling, more repulsive than even Miley Cyrus; thug Joseph Julian Soria (who recently displayed his next-level chops in HAMLET 2), and Art Hsu as slimy Johnny Yang, who is roughed up so much while grasping a cooler with Chelios’s heart in it, I’m sure it must be mush by now.

Other eccentric side-characters from CRANK return, sprinkled into the mucky-muck like shards of glass in pudding: girlfriend Eve (Amy Smart), whom Chelios discovers stripping (“I thought you were dead!” – so that’s a reason to become a stripper? She would ride Chelios reverse-cowboy in public on the horse track, while real jockeys race by them); Doc Miles (Dwight Yoakum), “I was a certified heart surgeon – at least I was – I’m pretty sure I can put your heart back in”; and Efren Ramirez in a hilarious turn as Venus, the (wink wink) “twin brother” of Kaylo, Chelios’s transvestite pal who got killed in the last movie.

Allying with Chelios to avenge his brother’s murder, Venus reveals he has “Full Body Tourette’s” that spasms his whole body at the worst of times. Is this a real condition? Hell, no! ALL Tourette’s affects your “full body” – uncontrollable tics, shrugs, grimacing are all symptoms of Tourette’s, not just– motherfucker piss shit cunt–

The funny thing is, these once-unimportant characters being reprised by the same actors in this installment somehow makes them important in this universe, and therefore warrant mentioning – hell, even Glenn Howerton returns as The Intern (in 2006, ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA was finding its feet – by this movie’s release, everyone knows the sociopath Dennis Reynolds…

“I’ve got that Best Director On Roller Skates award on LOCK!”

Released in April 2009, almost like an April Fool’s joke on cinema with its hyper-reality and ultra-violence and mega-resilient human bodies, co-writers-directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor smash-cut HIGH VOLTAGE like a runaway 18-wheeler around the grimiest, slimiest parts of Los Angeles; in other words – Los Angeles.

And they put Chev Chelios through the ringer – cops beat him with nightsticks until they tase him and he explodes out from under them, stealing the taser to use on himself until the charge runs out; he sees a man mistreating a dog with an electric collar, puts the collar on himself and makes the owner press the button; he attaches himself to jumper cables – one on the nip, one on the tongue; he creates friction by rubbing himself on a terrified old lady, who tells reporters: “He looked like one of those trainspotting fellows!”; he chases Johnny Yang to – what else? – a high voltage plant, where he makes Fluffy Movie Sparks fly to his heart’s content…

The filmmaking is like Robert Rodriguez meeting Danny Boyle, both accosting Edgar Wright. Filmed with filters wide open, making the sunny day look sweltering; crash-cuts, slamming cams, Dutch angles, titles onscreen, diabolical inserts and music cues; Ron Jeremy cameo!; Jennifer’s dad from BREAKING BAD is news anchor!; soundtrack by Mike Patton (Faith No More); Clifton Collins Jr chews scenery as the Big Bad, making thug Soria cut off his own nipples for losing Chelios!; Verona, Big Bad from CRANK, is now a head in cryo-liquid (think: FUTURAMA), just being kept alive to see Chelios defeated! Not with that Big Dick energy he won’t be!… Disturbing. Hilarious. Insane.

Guns. Blood. Tits. Big dick.

END

Okay, step up, people! Those tomatoes aren’t going to throw themselves!

Brady Bunchless.

It’s The Brady Bunch from the groovin’ 70s, transplanted into the grungy 90s. Plot lost. Actors shamed. Comedy dead.

The Brady’s owe back taxes. They must pay $20,000 or they lose their house. It’s up to the kids to raise that money – by winning a singing competition. So let’s get this straight: the parents of the house are derelict in their homeowner duties, yet dad keeps assuring mom that “Everything will be alright.” Yet everything is NOT alright if the money that eventually saved their house was won by their kids, who happened to see an ad for a talent contest, happened to be singers, and happened to face no better “talent” (at least, by the judges’ standards) in the contest.

Did I get that right? And then people wonder why so much vomit was choking the aisles at screenings of THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE.

Gary Cole stars as patriarch Mike Brady (originally played by the unflappable Robert Reed), the filmmakers opting to go with Reed’s cheesiest hairdo from that era – the Perm To Die For. Shelley Long is perfection as Carol Brady (originally Florence Henderson), looking and sounding exactly like Henderson in her Helmet And Fishtail ‘do. The Brady Kids are all vapid representations of their ‘70’s counterparts, except for –  Marcia Marcia Marcia! Christine Taylor positively inhabits Maureen McCormick’s most famous role – that of teen boys’ wanking fantasy, Marcia Brady. No matter what roles Taylor may play in the future (DODGEBALL, ZOOLANDER), we will always see through the makeup to the Marcia Marcia Marcia beneath.

Michael McKean is next-door neighbor Larry Dittmeyer, who has a stake in Mike selling his house; a welcome cynical presence around the syrup of Cindy Brady and her oblivious clan.

Cameos from Henderson as Grandma, Ann B. Davis (original Alice), Christopher Knight (original Peter); with Barry Williams (original Greg) in the most hilarious cameo as a record exec, approached by his modern counterpart (Christopher Daniel Barnes), begging him for a record deal as “Johnny Bravo.”

“Ohh, Mike! You make me so dry!”

TV director Betty Thomas, and writers Laurice Elehwany, Rick Copp, Bonnie Turner and Terry Turner do a strange thing with this remake of the 1970’s television sitcom that we all grew up with. They have no intention of endearing the Bradys to modern kids, nor is this version empowered to instill life lessons through the antics of the Brady brood; no, the filmmakers purposefully play it as if this is the Brady family from the early ‘70s sitcom (replete with fashion emergencies, outdated cultural norms and uncool vernacular from the 70’s) transplanted into a modern setting. As if they’ve just arrived in the 90s in a time machine. Thus, the only people who get the fish-out-of-water gags are people who knew the original cheesy show. It’s a kids’ show of the 70s, aimed at adults of the 90s. It’s completely NOT what THE BRADY BUNCH was made for, or stood for, or mocked for.

Supposedly a fish out of water tale – but these fish have never been out of the water. Meaning: how can these Bradys retain their ignorance of the modern world while living in it? They are all constantly bombarded with media, they attend school, Mike goes to his job, Alice goes shopping, Carol watches TV, reads magazines – they are all out in the world and interacting with it constantly. Where is the disconnect that allows them to be such cultural nitwits? It’s kinda stupid and embarrassing all at once.

A running gag is architect Mike only designing buildings that look like his suburban home (whether they be laundromats, burger joints or banks). How is he still employed? And how are the kids still using terms like “far out chick,” and “he’s so outa sight” when they are too young to have known those terms? You pick up slang from your peers, especially in school. But in school, there’s a Pearl Jam ethos sweeping the nation. (Real Greg Brady Record Exec even says to New Greg Hipster Tool, “Today’s sound is grunge, Seattle!”) So are the Brady kids picking up their outdated slang from reading Jimi Hendrix interviews?

The cold open shows a fast-paced, grimy world of modernity. Then the opening titles, done in the same manner as the TV series: nine boxes, smiley faces, insufferable jingle – but with a new rock beat that is far out, man! The movie has a TV feel, due to using the same interior design of the house, and the original series’ bumper music and situational music. And they start in on the classic lines from the series almost immediately.

The Bradys’ yard is a hermetically sealed environment. As soon as Cindy chases a ball out of the back gate, the clamor and grit of the 90s descends upon her. But she doesn’t feel it. Her psyche is as hermetically sealed as their yard.

There are a lot of premises from the original sitcom crammed into this movie, but none of them are resolved – they are just for nostalgia value, and mean next to nothing in the context of the movie, but to older viewers they will raise a titter or two. And Alice is as annoying as ever.

Full marks to the actors who are willing to make complete asshats of themselves in this mildly funny – satire? spoof? travesty? I was embarrassed FOR them, watching them doing such a good job of being embarrassing. Queasy, shameful emotions course through your body, chasing others of their kin through the viscous, unctuous cockles of your breast. At times you snigger with a knowing nod to the callback gags, but most of the movie, your skin will crawl with trepidation. Especially during the “talent show” where the Brady kids do the same song they did from one of their TV shows. Keep On, complete with the choreography. The most amazing part of this performance is that all the way through it, you just want to beat them with your shoe.

Davy Jones cameos, as he did on the TV series, when everyone was younger and actually cooler – here, he fronts a grunge band singing The Monkees’ Girl. Two more Monkees, Peter Tork and Mickey Dolenz, cameo as judges of the talent show – which explains why the Bradys won (at least to the over-30s who get the gag). But doesn’t explain how they sang to backing tracks that faded out along with their vocals and still won.

Hang on, let me get my shoe…

END