The opening to Cliffhanger is meant to be a harrowing experience. We're meant to feel enormous sorrow and pity as an innocent woman plunges to her horrible death. But how can we experience any kind of horror when Frank, a helicopter pilot played by Ralph Waite out of The Waltons, is in the background cackling with laughter? Just watch him. His eyes sparkle when Stallone tells the distressed woman that she's not doing to die. And he collapses in near hysterics when she falls but a few seconds later, obviously finding some kind of sick humour at the thought of the girl being smashed to pieces on the rocks, thousands of feet below. Contrast this with Michael Rooker's overacting – he almost faints as if he’s in a Jane Austen novel when he sees the girl plummet – and you have a scene that is tailor-made for chortles rather than gasps.

But to be fair to Stallone and the girl, they carry themselves pretty well in the scene. The girl pleads and pleads, and Stallone gamely hangs on. And the situation itself is excellent – huge drop, cracked harness, burly, lazy-mouthed actor trying to hang on to a hysterical woman who won’t shut the fuck up. But whenever I watch it, I can only see Frank's huge grin, his glowing eyes and him hooting in the background as Michael Rooker’s world falls apart. What exactly does Frank find so funny? Is he an evil old buzzard or has senility stalked its way into his spongy old brain? In his advanced years, does he think that the woman will be caught by kittens and rocketed to Valhalla in a chariot driven by mohawked-squirrels wearing diamond-encrusted strap-ons that spurt single-malt whisky? Or does he just not give a shit? Who the fuck knows...

However, as inappropriate as it is, Frank’s laughter isn’t entirely out of place. Nope, laughter is a common reaction when watching Cliffhanger. This isn’t to say that I dislike the film. It's a very enjoyable B-grade action movie. But it can't transcend the clichés of the genre.

One of the clichés the film adheres to is that the villain must be English. Well, at least I think he is. John Lithgow plays the main baddie and puts on an accent of some sort. But it's an amusing performance. His best bit has to be when he gets Stallone to climb up a rockface to get his money. "You, stay,” he says to the dribbling Rooker. And then to Stallone: “You, fetch." The joy is in his exaggerated enunciation. ‘Fetch’ somehow seems to have acquired an additional five syllables. Another funny bit is when Stallone throws Lithgow's money into the helicopter's rotors. "Damn you, Walker!" he screams like he's split a fingernail.

But there are other English villains. The first is Caroline Goodall who comes across as a low-rent Emma Thompson. But much more amusing is Craig Fairbrass (Dan out of EastEnders). His performance is atrocious. All he does is shout and swear. And he does it in a thick Cockney accent. “Fack this! Fack that!”

Fairbrass is immortalised in the scene where the drooling Michael Rooker goads him into beating him up. The Cockney is about as bright as a puddle of oil and forgoes a quick kill in favour of a prolonged pummeling. It turns out that Fairbrass' character is an ex-footballer. I guess this shouldn't be too surprising when his dialogue consists of lines like: "Yeah? And you're a loudmouth punk slag who's about to die." The only people I know who talk like that are West Ham fans.

But Fairbrass proceeds to give Rooker a surreal football-themed kicking, complete with running commentary – he even runs up to take a penalty. Is this how Hollywood sees the English? We're either effete brigands or beer-swilling hooligans. Actually, thinking about it, it's quite an accurate observation. Well done Renny Harlin. In your world of back-swimming sharks and flying Indy cars, you managed to find a single truth.

However, my favourite villain of all is played by Leon (he's so cool he doesn't even have a surname). He’s a tough Lennox Lewis-looking-like-motherfucker who eschews Fairbrass' shouty brand of villainy and instead tries to be quietly intimidating. This would be great but his line delivery is atrocious. He has no timing and seems incapable of emphasizing the right words. Where Lithgow can stretch and bend and slather layers of wonderful ham on his dialogue, Leon can only make his words sound like leaden mouth farts.

But to give the guy his dues, it is noticeable that, unlike Fairbrass, he does excel once he gives in to his urge to shout. He has a great scene in a cave where he actually seems like a genuine threat - he stalks Stallone and his girl with menace, taunting impotent old whitey with his ultimate fear; his girl having a black dick thrust upon her (and her liking it!). But before Stallone’s girlfriend Jessie has to suffer this outrage, Stallone grabs Leon by the balls and gorilla presses him through a spike. It's a WWE sort of death…which unsurprisingly I dig a great deal. (Although the filmmakers did miss a trick by not having Stallone yell, ‘You get the point!’ before shish-kebabing the scary black man.)

Speaking of Stallone, how does he fair in this film? Well, I've never really had much of a problem with Sly as an actor. Yeah, technically he’s not too great and yes he sounds like a man who was born with his brain upside down, but he is capable of a good performance here and there - just watch Copland or Rocky Balboa. Sadly, Cliffhanger is not one of those films. He’s okay at the beginning, showing humour and charm, but after the accident it all goes downhill. His idea of being haunted is to mope about like a thirteen-year-old that's been told to stop using his father's credit card to download porn. It's so amateurish.

Thank Christ then for Stallone’s bulging biceps! It’s these puppies that are given the opportunity to shine. I mean, just take the scene where the villains order Stallone to climb the mountain to retrieve their money. They make him remove his jacket. I can't help but feel that this wasn't done to prove how evil the villains are, but to allow Sly to climb while flaunting his thick, muscular arms. We don't want those babies covered up, no sirree!

However, Stallone and his biceps look like Marlon Brando compared to the "Whoa, dude!" extreme sports enthusiasts that pop up. They're sort of like Bill and Ted but without the charm. In fact, I wasn't distraught that one of them died; I was distraught that one survived. But at least the death of the Kurt Cobain lookalike gives us a hilarious silent "No!" moment from the gurning Michael Rooker, who once again amazes me with his sincere cheese. But then later on we get to relive the hilarity, because Frank's death elicits another rib-tickling "No!" moment.

Hey, what can I say, the old buzzard had it coming. You ain't laughing now, are you?

My brother and I used to refer to Days of Thunder as Days of Chunder (to ‘chunder’ being to vomit). In our estimation, the film was so shit that just to watch a few moments of it would make you regurgitate all over yourself.

So how did it fare this time? Was it as bad as I remembered? Yes. And did I puke all over myself? Thankfully no.

One of the most shocking things about this film is that it was written by Robert Towne – the guy who wrote the masterpiece Chinatown. But then you look at the screen and see that Tom Cruise had a story writing credit. You can just imagine him in script meetings. ‘Yeah, I want a scene where I drive really fast with a shit-eating grin. I want one where I almost die and subsequently learn important life lessons. And I want one where I knob some ginger chick who’s at least two feet taller than me.’

But you’ve also got to remember that this is the same production team that made Top Gun. That means that you shouldn’t expect cinematic excellence. And also bear in mind that uber producer Don Simpson was the sort of man who liked to have prostitutes drink from his toilet as he pissed into it, that he once had fat injected into his penis to give it more girth (unfortunately he ended up with a deformed cock) and that during the filming of Days of Thunder he was experimenting with testosterone implants...in his ass. The theory was that the implants would give him a steady flow of macho energy. Instead they leaked and he went crazy. Mental giants were not in control of this production.

To illustrate this fact, consider the scene where Cole Trickle (yes, that’s the name of Cruise’s character) and rival race driver Rowdy Burns (another great name, and one that perhaps suggests that the character perpetually has the clap) race each other in wheelchairs. You see, earlier in the film, they had quite the rivalry going on and it lead to a spectacular crash. And now that they’re both in hospital, they decide to have a chair race. Yes, they’re primary school children.

However, there’s a scene that’s even more spectacularly stupid than this. For some reason the head of NASCAR invites them to dinner and gives them a set of keys for a car that they can drive over. He does this even though they have serious head injuries and hate each other’s guts. Yes, giving them a car and not having them driven over by a limo would be a great idea. So Rowdy encourages Cole to hire a car so that they can have another race – Rowdy in the car that the NASCAR guy gave him and Cole in the rental. And the two men proceed to race across streets and beaches in their shitty automobiles, ruining their cars. And when they finally arrive for dinner, they no longer hate each other. They share a knowing look that suggests that this vehicular destruction was a substitute for a hard cock up the arse.

By the way, the term for ramming another car is ‘rubbing’. Therefore nearly half of the film consists of men ramming and rubbing each other.

Bearing this in mind, it’s not surprising that women hardly get a look in. Nicole Kidman is a bland prophet of doom who eventually sees the light and realises that happiness lies not with professional integrity but with being a subservient beard. And then earlier in the film we have a scene where Cole and his race team get pulled over by cops. Cole is pushed into the team’s truck and is then groped by a state trooper. It turns out that the trooper is a stripper with a gorgeous set of tits. But you see, just like Maverick was wooed by his woman dressing like a man in Top Gun, Cole Trickle likes some gender reversal too.

Something else that illustrates how disposable women are in this world is the ending. You see, Trickle wins Daytona and celebrates with his beard for about two seconds. But then he sees that Harry, his surrogate father (played by Robert Duvall), isn’t joining in. This makes Cole sad and the two share a little moment. Eventually Harry perks up and the film ends with the two men running after each other with shit-eating grins. Pussy is nice and all, but real ecstasy lies in rubbing another man in victory lane.

Second to the explicit man love, the most amazing thing about Days of Thunder is how stupid Cole Trickle is. He doesn’t know anything about tires or engines. He doesn’t know that you’ll knacker a car if you give it too many revs. How am I supposed to believe that? How am I supposed to believe that a racing driver that supposedly has a few years of experience wouldn’t know that you couldn’t just take a race car and drive it as fast as you can – that you have to have a little strategy? It’s surely too much to ask of an audience.

And then when Cole is injured he’s like a small child. He has to have an MRI and gets a little frightened because no one is talking to him. He then goes on to mention that when he drives he has a man who talks to him all the time. Poor didums needs someone to hold his hand at all times. He probably even needs Harry to tell him how to pee.

But one of the most stupid acts is actually committed by Nicole Kidman. And no it’s not the moment when she decides that Cole can park his car in her garage. No, it’s the fact that she goes on a motorcycle ride with him…without a helmet...after he’s crashed his car and has head injuries. Fuck me running, would you entrust your life to this muppet? A man who can’t control a car and who makes a living by wearing overalls that have Mello Yello emblazoned all over them? He’ll probably crash the bike and then have you piss on his face.

The only thing that saves the film is how outstandingly bad it is. Nowhere else do you find the line ‘we ended up looking like a monkey fucking a football out there’ in it. It’s entertaining for all the wrong reasons. I mean, it has Carey Elwes playing a smarmy scumbag racer. That’s got to be worth something. Not a whole lot, but something. Plus there’s a scene where, after winning a race, and while celebrating his victory lap, Trickle rams Elwes at full speed. Somehow Cole doesn’t receive a life ban for this. Perhaps NASCAR know what a prick Carey Elwes is.