"Crank" is cut

Picture this. Jason Stratham, one of the top emerging martial arts actors. He did a fairlly bang-up job in "The Transporter" and its sequel with some dynamic fight concepts and innovative use of environment. Now, his character wakes up to find that he's been injected with a poison called Beijin Cocktail--it blocks adrenal inhibitors in the heart causing it to eventually slow to a stop. So what's he do, like any other dude, he finds the snake who did this to him and puts him and his croonies through his own brand of sick torture. But here's the catch. Stratham's character must keep his adrenaline levels high in order to counteract his rapidly retarding heart. Or he dies.

Sounds intense, sounds like there would be plenty of oppurtunity for catchy one-liner's or memorable finishing moves. But "Crank" came up way short. There is not a single micron of martial arts action in the entire movie. This dawned on me partway through the movie, so I put my senses on high alert and without scrutiny hoping for a simple grapple, roundhouse kick, or flashy counter attack; enough to not give this movie a perfect kill. But I got nothing. Sure there were some innovative cinematic aspects and even a cleverly done scene where the audience is duped by the main characters perscription-induced hallucinations, but I won't talk about them because the lack of martial arts action from an actor with a pedigree of entertaining ability is so dissapointing, it ecllipses everything else. For martial arts fans hoping to see an exciting movie done in there era, something that you can look back on and think, "Now that was the golden age of martial arts movies," save your money for "The Protector".