This is, without a doubt, the year of the B-Movie. Slither set the tone, Snakes on a Plane got the internet charged up and Crank will best them all. That's no idle promise, this is a movie so brilliantly B that, ironically, those with heart conditions best give it a wide berth. And that means that the rest of us are in for a treat.

Speed with a heart, Crank is the ingenious brainchild of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor; music-video directors turned big-screen masterminds. And like others of their fraternity - Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Hammer & Tongs - who've delivered stunning visual spectacles matched with emotional intensity that demands attention, their debut effort doesn't disappoint.

But while the emotional intensity of, particularly, the Jonze and Gondry films relied on drama, Crank is all about adrenaline. This is a film that dares our own heart-rates to match those of its lead character and watching this film is like hopping on Space Mountain with Jason Statham as your travelling companion.

And Statham proves to be fine company. He's become the poster-boy for the tongue-in-cheek action hero generation, serving up roles in the likes of The Transporter and Cellular with a clear grasp of self-deprecating humour, even if the rest of the cast and crew are never with him.

In Crank, they really, really are. During one of the film's few-and-far-between moments of reflection, long after we've learned of Chelios' predicament and his assassin lifestyle, he sits down with his girlfriend (played with much enthusiasm by Amy Smart) and studies her for a moment before carefully asking, "Remember I told you I was a video-game programmer?" It's a funny line on paper considering the circumstances that have lead to his necessary confession, but with Statham's steely resolve it's uproarious.

Ridiculously, incomprehensibly, undeniably cool, brilliantly, passionately and hysterically original, Crank is pure cinema heaven - nearly ninety minutes of action and comedy for its own sake with none of the silly little plot or conceivability niggles inevitably dolled out in your average Michael Bay film. If Jason Statham earned a penny for every time he was The Man in Crank, he'd have riches enough to buy the world. An insane suggestion befitting this year's most insane and criminally fun movie.