This year has been a very strange and unexpected year for movies. We’ve had the silver age comic book goofiness of “The Avengers,” a “Battleship” movie in which no one utters the line “You sunk my battleship,” and of course, “Moonrise Kingdom,” which as a Wes Anderson film is always going to be wildly idiosyncratic. But by far the most unexpected and different movie of the summer is “Premium Rush”. Unlike the other summer blockbusters, “Premium Rush” takes a simple plot, simple characters, and a quirky premise and creates a fun and exciting movie that looks fantastic and offers a head-spinning tour of Manhattan. Also, bicycle crashes are hilarious.

“Premium Rush” focuses on New York’s elite bike curriers, who dodge in and out of dangerous Manhattan traffic, risking life and limb to deliver important business things. Stocks, or something. I don’t know how business works. The best of these curriers is, of course, Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a recent law school grad who never took the bar exam and rides a fixie bike with no brakes. When he unknowingly accepts a delivery from his girlfriend’s Chinese-immigrant roommate (Jamie Chung) that contains a “ticket” (a kind of illegal cashier’s check for underground gambling dens) worth thousands of dollars, he becomes the target of corrupt and unpredictable NYPD detective Robert Monday, who wants it to cover his gambling debts to the dangerous Chinese Hawala underground gambling network.

These characters are drawn in fun, broad strokes, and while they have little to no development arcs, they are absolutely fun and effectively portrayed. Even the most minor characters, like the wise, old bike currier spouting quotes from Zen scripture, are memorably and capably drawn. Gordon-Levitt plays Wilee like a gruff, X-Games hippie, which is more subtle than the movie really requires, but is definitely welcome. The real pleasure is watching Michael Shannon as Detective Robert Monday, who has, in his own words, “impulse control issues.” Shannon plays the role like a violent cartoon character, and punctuates his speech with a bizarre, piping laugh like Beeker from “The Muppets.” Seriously, though, it really works, and his presence makes the movie more than Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s. He makes a Mazda threatening; give him an Oscar.

While the plot and the characters are fairly simple and straightforward, the action sequences and non-stop chase scenes are directed fantastically by David Koepp (“The Secret Window” (2004) and writer of “Spiderman” (2002)), and the story unfolds in short switchbacks of past and present, letting the viewer see every aspect of the plot. When you realize that every car on the road was probably a trained driver, you get a sense of how well executed and choreographed they must have been. Koepp also is sure to give you a peek at how close to danger each of these messengers are by giving a multiple-choice style breakdown of the routes available to bikers, with the first two ending in graphic and entertaining (hilarious) bicycle crashes. Also, Premium Rush has a Google Maps motif running through the film that lays out the route each chase scene uses, through Central Park or down Broadway, and it lends the film an amazing sense of place. New York is as much a character, if not more so, than many of the actors.

While the action keeps you entertained, the film does have some strange pacing issues, and one very shocking, but not altogether unexpected, instance of violence, but it’s all done bloodlessly and interestingly. These bicyclists lose a suspiciously small amount of skin from skidding across the New York pavement, and can bounce back from accidents like superheroes, but that’s to be expected in an action movie with so little on its mind.

If you’re looking for a movie that’s easy to enjoy with a refreshingly small plot in comparison to this summer’s blockbusters, give “Premium Rush” a shot. It’s not the best movie to come out this summer, but it’s ten times better than it needs to be. And the slick, unique action of bicycle chases is worth the price of admission. Also the bike crashes are awesome. Did I mention the bike crashes are awesome?