For a movie premised on unrelenting action, Crank proves fatally turgid. The premise takes high concept to a new low. Chev Chelios (Jason Stratham), hit man extraordinaire, wakes up to learn he's been dosed with "the Beijing cocktail," a poison whose lethal effects can be fended off only by a constant surge of adrenaline. Thus, with utmost speed, in this retread of Speed, Chev rampages through Los Angeles seeking Verona (Jose Pablo Cantillo), the rival who poisoned him, and the means of sustaining his neck-bulging buzz.
He chugs Red Bull, gobbles energy supplements, injects ephedrine, fondles a defibrillator, licks cocaine off a bathroom floor, snorts nasal decongestant by the bottle and rapes his girlfriend (Amy Smart, playing dumb) in the middle of Chinatown. Mostly, however, he's powered by rage, which he vents through explosions of violence and misanthropy.
The writing and directing team of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor jack up the action with all manner of gore, gimmickry and hysterical camerawork, none of which is as vigorous as the equal-opportunity hatred they exhibit toward the denizens of Los Angeles, be they black, Latino, Asian, Muslim, gay, female or theater customers paying to see a decent action flick.
PHOTO COURTESY OF PANDASIA
That last demographic may feel most insulted of all when, in the climactic showdown, Verona holsters his gun to plunge another syringe of poison into Chev's neck — you know, the one that doesn't work — then turns his back to make a getaway. He may be one of the dumbest villains in movie history, but you've got to root for him. Dead, Chev puts everyone out of his misery.
And so, in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s trip to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), all the experts on the Strait of Hormuz suddenly became experts on US-China-Taiwan relations. The Internet has certainly expanded human knowledge. Lots of these sudden experts made noise this week about Trump’s words after the meeting with PRC dictator Xi Jin-ping (習近平). Trump is going to sell out Taiwan! Longtime Taiwan commentator J. Michael Cole summed the situation up neatly in the Guardian: “We need to keep in mind that he has a tendency to say many things — sometimes contradicting himself within
There is considerable frustration and confusion among many, both in Taiwan and abroad — including in Washington — as to why the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) seems so dead set on using their legislative leverage to slash defense spending and disrupt the ability of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration to function. Are they pawns of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)? Are they traitors? In reality, there are multiple reasons. In the first column in this series on this subject, “Donovan’s Deep Dives: How and why the TPP and KMT help Beijing” (Sat May 16, page 12), we examined three
It took 12 years and months of standing in the same mountain location for director Liang Chieh-te (梁皆得) to capture a few seconds of footage: Taiwan’s largest resident raptor locking talons with its mate and spinning through the air in a courtship ritual. With only about 1,000 left in the wild and very short flight windows, the mountain hawk-eagle remains among Taiwan’s most elusive birds. The species generally produces only one offspring per year. Using forest cameras, the film crew and research teams document the arduous process the monogamous pairs go through for the chick to hatch and grow up, weathering
May 25 to May 31 Few believed that apples could be cultivated on a commercial scale in Taiwan’s high mountains. When horticulturalist Cheng Chao-hsiung (程兆熊) first proposed the idea in 1955, both American and Taiwanese colleagues dismissed it as implausible, arguing that temperate fruit could not be reliably grown on a subtropical island, especially on rugged terrain. However, it was this terrain in the Central Mountain Range where many Chinese Civil War veterans were resettled in the late 1950s. With limited job prospects and no family in Taiwan, they were placed on cooperative farms aimed toward self-sufficiency. Some say the conditions
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