But when I took my seat to watch Shoot Em Up, I had envisaged a hard-nosed action thriller, and not an hysterical romp through a cartoon-esque world.

This film features Clive Owen as a Bugs Bunny style character who uses carrots - I kid you not - to kill people, in this laughable excuse for an action film.

Shoot 'Em Up opens with Mr Smith (Clive Owen) sitting at a bus stop eating a carrot (of course), who sees a team of assassins trying to kill a pregnant woman.

Smith becomes a reluctant hero as he laughably delivers the baby while shooting all the bad guys - and uses a bullet to cut the umbilical cord in the most ridiculous scene every to reach the cinemas.

Left holding the baby, Mr Smith finds himself on the run, sharing childcare with a lactating prostitute played by Monica Bellucci. Yes, you read that right, a lactating prostitute.

The pair form an unlikely bond as they try stay one step ahead of Mr Hertz - Paul Giamatti's hilariously conniving villain.

The action scenes are over-the-top, but so inventive that you'll be looking at your fellow audience members wondering if what you saw actually did just happen.

There is no pretense at believability, and this is a cartoon replete that could be the proof that too much violence really is bad for you.

Packed with cheesy one-liners - like a sex scene during a shoot out that ends with "talk about shooting your load" - prove this is a film with its tongue heavily in its cheek, and by the time if gets to the skydiving gunfight in mid-air, you will be crying with laughter.

Buried beneath its avalanche of firefights lies a plot about some conspiracy involving the US senator, but the plot really isn't important hidden underneath the video-game style fight scenes.

Watch and laugh as Owen flings a newborn baby around like it were a doll, has sex while killing several people, hides a prostitute and a dead woman's baby in a tank, and finds inventive ways to kill people using carrots.

On leaving the cinema I was left wondering if I had just woken from a cheese-induced nightmare, but no, this film is real.