Crank: High Voltage

Director: Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor
Year Released: 2009
Rating: 2.0

Kinetic nihilism that successfully conceals the fact it's essentially one guy running and/or driving around the streets of L.A. (Jason Statham) the entire time trying to kick-start his artificial heart (his real ticker was actually torn from his body). It should appeal to the Maxim Magazine crowd, as there's plenty of tacky humor, homophobia and gratuitous nudity to go along with the graphic violence and video game aesthetic: it was designed for those who just put down their XBox 360 controllers and forgot to refill their prescription for Adderall. The manic technique - and that's all this is - is sometimes quite inspired (I personally like the 8-bit Nintendoesque introduction and the creative editing), and it's more than evident that Neveldine and Taylor have spent a good amount of time carefully analyzing some of the pioneers of the avant-garde.