Turn up the Adrenaline. Tone down the Quality.

By Adam Truong, staff writer
Thursday September 14, 2006

Crank, a seemingly great action-packed movie, disappoints.

Imagine waking up and realizing that your little brother picked his nose and stuck his booger in your mouth while you were sleeping. Well, for Chev Chelios (Jason Statham), his day began one hundred times as worse.

Chev had been poisoned with a deadly ancient Chinese drug that stops the heart when the body is relaxed. It was then a race against time as Chev fought for revenge. Would he find his mark? Or would his body give out to the poison that coursed through his veins?

The movie began as though you were playing a videogame. In fact, the credits and the opening scenes were pixilated, imitating a 16-bit arcade game. It followed suit that the main character was basically on a videogame mission to hack-and-slash his way through his last hours.

Although it was a brilliant plot idea, Crank failed to reach its full potential through the movie. The beginning held plenty of laughs and awesome action sequences, but it's obvious that the director ran out of ideas. There was a sense of redundancy as I watched Chev kill a man, get adrenaline, kill another man, and then get some more adrenaline. Once again, it's exactly like those crappy five cent video games where my hero moves along the 2-D plane and punches bad guys holding crow bars.

Although the movie did progress fairly slowly, the sense of urgency was well portrayed. Every time Chev felt tired, the audience knew that he was on the brink of death and their heart began to race as he struggled to stay alive. I have to admit. Even my heart was pounding.

Most of the movie, however, was hollow. The plot line was uninteresting, the action was mediocre for the most part, and the acting talents of Amy Smart were wasted, as she did little but provide Chev with his much needed adrenaline.

Adam's honest judgment?

C grade; 7.2/10