The Mayans said that the World would end in 2012, December 21st in fact (so don’t be buying any Peacocks gifts vouchers), but those pesky Aztec ripoff neglected to mention that one the signs of the upcoming Apocalypse would be Helena Bonham-Carter not starring in a Tim Burton film.

And here we are, like the nose on your plain face, looking right at the factual evidence that Bonham-Carter is going to be elsewhere when they film ‘Big Eyes.’

Instead of the massively haired weirdo, Burton has picked the insufferable Reese Witherspoon and the equally insufferable but slightly more fanciable, Ryan Reynolds to play the parts of indie artists, Margaret and Walter Keane respectively.

For those who don’t know and can’t be bothered to look on Wikipedia, the Keane’s are responsible for some of the scariest artwork, and surely an inspiration for Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s face. Massive, doe eyed women wearing clown leotards, or lying down next to tigers.

Whether you’ve heard of them or not makes no odds, because we doubt anyone will be going to see this film. There’s no Bonham-Carter in it, is there?!

The film depicts the court case where Margaret disputed the claims her husband, Walter, made about their paintings. Turns out that Maggie had allowed Walter to use his name to sell them but when it came to their divorce, she wanted them back. To prove to a judge that she was the true creator of the scary looking paintings, she knocked one up whereas he cried off claiming that he had a sore shoulder.

Loser.

The whole film sounds dreadful doesn’t it, like it should be Legally Blonde 5: The Peroxide Is Starting To Make My Hair Fall Out.

What’s more important is where will Bonham-Carter be during the filming? Probably stashing weapons grade uranium into her hair and smuggling it out of North Korea. Or continuing her research into antibiotic resistant influenza in the Burt Cave.

Hey perverts! Get ready to say “Oooh. I wouldn’t say that to him. I’d…” and then trail off into your own dirty thoughts. Okay? Let’s go shall we! Ryan Gosling is fed up with people confusing him for fellow actor Ryan Reynolds.

Do you know the difference?

Seems a lot of people don’t. Once you’ve met someone called Ryan, you’ve met ‘em all haven’t you? And besides, no Ryan ever amounted to much did they? It’s a stupid, boring name. Anyway, what does Gosling think about being confused for Mr R. Reynolds of Hollywood, Dumbsville?

The ‘Drive’ douche said that, whilst it is flattering to be compared to Reynolds, it does tend to leave people feeling disappointed to see him sporting a rather different physique.

He says:

“I have people come up to me wanting to get a picture.”

“I line up with them and they’re like, ‘Oh! I thought you’d be a lot more muscular’. It’s about then that I realise their mistake and have to point out that I’m not Ryan Reynolds.”

Oooooh, you wouldn’t say that to him would you? You think he’s dead fit don’t you? You’d wrestle him to the ground and ride him like a stolen bike wouldn’t you?

You wouldn’t mistake him for Ryan Reynolds would you? You’d do wicked things to Ryan Reynolds as well. Just imagine the pair of them. The pair of them tag-teaming you. Just think. You wouldn’t mistake them. You’d look at them both, say the correct name to the correct actor and then dribble before…

…this has to stop.

When Sean Penn’s not being pestered by Scarlett Johansson on the rebound, he’s being all philanthropic and all that jive. Of course, having a political persuasion means you’ll rub some people up the wrong way and they shout at you.

Mercifully for Sean Penn, he’s a grade-a bitch. He has put-downs that could almost match the output of a drag queen convention.

And who found this out at their cost? Why, if it wasn’t a co-star of his who accused Penn of being a Communist. What fun!

You may or may not know or care, but Penn is a big supporter of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. He’s a red. And an old co-star of Sean’s, called Maria Conchita Alonso, took an opportunity to shoot her mouth off at the actor when she bumped into him at LAX.

Conchita, recounts the incident, said:

I said, ‘I would like to talk to you.’ He said, ‘Oh, it’s you. I have nothing to say to you. You speak badly about me.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t. I just say the truth. That you are a friend of Chavez and that he’s a good man. And that’s a lie. How can you do that?’

He said, ‘You are a pig!’ So I said, ‘And you are a Communist asshole!’

I was so angry and I had all this built inside me for so many years, and he calls me a pig. I just exploded. My mother was so happy, she wanted to clap.

Imagine that. Calling someone a crude name and your mother welling up with pride as she stands beside you. Something that hecklerspray is still waiting on.

Penn’s retort?

I only knew that a hostile woman was nonsensically berating me. I didn’t realize it was that actress. I think I worked with her once. But she looks really different. She was uninformed and impolite to all the other passengers.

If you’re wondering – which you’re not – Alonso and Penn starred in Colors together.

You may find this hard to believe but the hecklerspray staff are hideous. It’s true. We’re not a pretty bunch of misanthropes. We’re so ugly in fact, that none of us are able to get a date with anyone who has at least one functioning eye and if we were ever forced to mate with each other, our offspring would look like Michael Berryman, but much shorter and with considerably more hair.

So when we hear about beautiful people who are touching the bottoms of other beautiful people, it makes us terribly unhappy and we feel the need to make fun of them for your amusement, safe in the knowledge that we’ve made fun of ourselves first before you can respond with something annoyingly lame and probably in text speak.

Let’s do this.

Horribly attractive stars Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds have been spotted in public, walking around with hats and sunglasses on and drinking coffee which obviously means they are engaging in really dull, caffeine fueled sex sessions at bedtime, probably keeping their shades on so even they don’t recognise each other.

Blake who has been in Gossip Girl for 47 years has been dating Reynolds (former husband of Boobs Johansson)  for the past few weeks and even though he’s dated at least 786 women, we’re convinced that THIS IS THE ONE!!!

According to reports, the pair were spotted cuddling and giggling in NYC and were even poking each other in a booth during brunch and we’re now so busy thinking of fingering jokes, that we don’t care what else they did during their trip.

They probably put on balaclavas and looked at some art.

Former wife, Scarlett, who recently said that her marriage to Reynolds was ‘the best thing I ever did‘ isn’t very happy about this, despite the fact she was jumping Sean Penn every 17 seconds, in between doing really terrible perfume adverts.

A US Weekly mischief maker claimed:

‘Scarlett is pissed that he’s not under her spell anymore.’

‘Ryan would have gotten back with her. He was so totally in love, but then she flaunted Sean right after their split, and he was done.’

ISN’T THAT SAD??

No. It isn’t. Dry your eyes.

Scarlett Johansson’s boobs. She showed them off to us by accident didn’t she? That’s probably the thing she’ll be remembered for when she dies. Boobs, oh and she did some films. Better to be remembered for titties than forgotten entirely, right?

Either way, we’re not here to talk about breasts all day. We’re talking marriage. Pull up a seat. Let’s get deep.

See, Scarlett is under the assumption that marrying Ryan Reynolds was one of the best decisions she ever made. She split with him after two years and made one of the most annoying perfume adverts in history. But it was still totally the best thing she ever did. Ryan Reynolds. Think about that.

Nothing good comes out of Ryan Reynolds. Literally. It’s all waste products, humid air and nincompoopery. He’s a dithering sack of shit with a granite hard torso and 14 inch skull.

Still, Johansson claims marrying the star of the ‘Green Lantern’ was the best thing she ever, ever did. Much better than the time she got with Sean Penn by sheer persistence.

She said:

“It was the best thing I ever did. I’m a big believer that when something feels right, you should do it.”

“I’m a big believer in instinct. Getting married was the right thing to do because it was natural. It grew out of romance and love and a desire to have a future with somebody, and I was very fortunate that I married somebody who turned out to be the person I thought he would be.”

So, how does one celebrate the love of the union of marriage? Why, you don’t spend any time together and, in the case of Scarlett, she wasn’t prepared to do the work necessary to keep their romance alive!

HURRAY!

Speaking to Cosmopolitan magazine, she said:

“Relationships are complicated. Being married is a living, breathing process. I think I was not fully aware of the peaks and the valleys. I wasn’t prepared to hunker down and do the work. Both of us were extremely busy. We spent so much time apart. It’s very difficult.”

Of course, marriage is a stupid, dangerous drug for those fearful of their own company, and hecklerspray advises that you don’t even try it. You saw Charlie Sheen when he was out of his mind on expensive drugs? Marriage turns you into a bigger dillweed than that!

Seriously. Go watch Bridezillas and hark at the endless identical baby pictures currently littering your Facebook feed.

Just. Say. No (preferably at the altar for maximum impact).

Ryan Reynolds – man that is made entirely of gym instructions – and Charlize Theron – a woman designed to occupy thongs – have apparently been dating for months, and were both so simple minded (much like cows in a field) that they forgot to tell anyone… including themselves.

A source close to the pair has revealed to at least four people who were half-listening, that the pair are officially ‘in a relationship’, telling reporters: “They’re exclusive, and it’s very hush-hush.”

Presumably, even Charlize Theron doesn’t want to admit that she’s going steady with the man responsible for the dreadful, dreadful Green Lantern film.

Thus far, the couple have managed to dodge photographers, but this could once again be down to immense stupidity. Rumour has it that the pair stood before a window of Curry’s, waving at all the cameras and presuming that they were getting vital publicity for their dismal projects.

However, things soon came to a stop as they were both distracted by a balloon and ran-after it, trying to grab the sky with their stupid, stupid hands.

The source adds:

“They’re both career-focused, but not in a crazy way. [Theron] won’t go to an event with him. That’s not her style.”

This is down to Theron’s fear of red carpets, which she still believes are made entirely of rocking horse blood. Meanwhile, Reynolds is still in contact with his ex wife, Scarlett Johansson, because he didn’t understand what she meant when she told him ‘I don’t love you anymore’.

Next week: Reynolds and Theron are told that ice cubes are made from very cold water.

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It’s nice to know that, even though you’re widely regarded to be one of the most beautiful humans who ever walked this pathetic excuse of a planet, you can still be hugely flawed and make an idiot of yourself before someone you really, really fancy.

We’re talking about Scarlett Johansson and her besottery with Sean Penn, perhaps one of the most baffling celebrity hook-ups in a decade, what with him having a face like wrinkled elbow-scrag.

See, it appears that the romance between the Hollywood beaut and the wizened actor had to die because Scarlett was into Penn way too much, leaving him widening his eyes and mouthing ‘What the f…’

It seems that our Scarlett was “besotted” with Penn, who didn’t need all that in his life, especially given that Johansson’s divorce hasn’t even gone through yet.

After a five-month affair, the pair knocked the relationship on the head, leaving everyone with a palpable sense of balance being restored in The Force.

A source, speaking with absolutely zero authority on the matter, says:

“Sean is simply not ready for a long-term or very serious relationship, given it’s too soon since he and Robin [Wright] divorced. Scarlett’s intensity just scared him – which is kind of funny, given how intense Sean is”

So what kind of intensity are we talking about here?

Well, apparently Scarlett just decided that she’d move in with Penn in his Los Angeles mansion, which is presumably still full of his ex-wife’s stuff… not to mention the echoes of Sean Penn crying “JESUS WEPT! SHE’S MOVED IN! I’VE ONLY KNOWN HER FIVE MINUTES! Great rack though… so… er… ”

A source close to Sean says that the actor started to “totally freak out” when “a very emotionally needy” Scarlett moved in.

Wow. Not just us then. Brill.

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You may well think that Scarlett Johansson is the most beautiful woman you’ve even seen, which probably means that you think you don’t stand a chance of ever making out with her. Well you do, because she’s decided to tap a troll-faced Sean Penn. Repeatedly. While Barack Obama watches on.

That’s right mingers, Johansson has long been rumoured to be swapping fluids with Penn, despite the fact he could curdle the vapour in the air with his foul face.

And while in the presence of President Obama, Mila Kunis and Donald Trump, Scarlett decided to indulge in a spot of heavy petting with Penn at Saturday’s White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington, D.C. Honestly. They were like teenagers at a roller disco, all grunting and dribbles.

One eye witness, desperate to tell anyone in earshot about the people they’d seen with more talent that them, breathlessly panted:

“It happened right as the main course of the dinner was being put on the table”

“Scarlett was pawing at Sean, holding on to his hip while he was smoking. She gave him a short kiss. But then they took a walk some 30 feet away, broke off from the group and kissed some more.”

What were they doing?! Did Penn get to second or third base in a hedge? Did they slope off and buy cheap booze and promise to make each other mix tapes? DID SEAN PENN SEE SCARLETT JOHANSSON’S BRA?

“Around 1 a.m. Sean and Scarlett were side by side for the rest of the night. When they were walking out the door, Sean stopped her, took off his jacket and put it on her shoulders, saying, ‘It’s cold out there.’ They then grabbed hands and walked out before 3 a.m.”

You may think that is a selfless act of chivalry. You couldn’t be more wrong. The ‘jacket over the shoulder’ trick is celebrity code for sex. The coat is a metaphor for the sheath worn by those not wanting to ride bareback in the sheets, the exposed shoulder being the recipients willingness to receive such ‘gentlemanly activity’.

So basically, Sean Penn told the world that he was off for some hardcore action with that woman you fancy.

But why did Penn attend at meeting at The Hill with all those politicians? Well, in what could easily be more celebrity code, he said:

“I’m mostly here for Haiti, and I want to help bring some attention to that crisis.”

We can’t even imagine what that could mean. You’re not even listening are you. You’re still thinking of Scarlett Johansson’s boobs aren’t you?

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Scarlett Johansson is rumoured to have been dating Sean Penn for the last two months. Therefore, it was no real surprise when there were pictures taken of the pair eating lunch together; lunch that had a happy ending; lunch for which she paid.

Well, cry yourself to sleep no more, dear hecklerspray reader/ squatter of the hecklerspray hovel. If the reaching rumours are true, you’ve just as good a shot as anyone at bedding the buxom baby Marilyn Monroe.

There were raised eyebrows at the news the 26-year-old and 50-year-old were less dating and more sleeping together for kicks and column inches. Our stomachs had just settled when these rumours were followed by ones of Scarlett dating Jason Sudeikis and flirting with Kevin Connolly.

Today, the bar’s been raised ever so slightly as Scarlett expands her bloke harem.

It’s being reported by New York’s Page Six that’s Scarlett’s dating Jeremy Renner; best known for his role in Oscar-winning Hurt Locker and that film about bank robbing nuns, or whatever, The Town.

After the two adults were foolishly seen standing near each other with drinks that were assumed to have lowered their inhibitions, it was decided they were sleeping together too.

From Page Six:

Following rumours of a hook-up with Sean Penn, Scarlett Johansson shared friendly drinks with “Hurt Locker” star Jeremy Renner Friday night. The pair, who appeared to be “good friends,” were spotted with a group at Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont, just days after Johansson and Penn shared a cozy lunch at LA Cuban restaurant Versailles and then reportedly took an overnight getaway to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

See – we weren’t kidding about your odds. You’re going to need an Oscar to get your foot in the door, though.

This was a guest post by Amy Grindhouse, so three stinkin’ cheers for that.

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Plenty of the rich and fabulous have been buried in recent memory: Diff’rent Strokes actor, Gary Coleman, stroking kids musician, Michael Jackson and one of those Corey kids from the ‘80s.

Yet, it’s hard to imagine anyone whose managed to do it in such a captivating way as Ryan Reynolds in the suffocating thriller, Buried.

Hitchcockian in its nature, Buried has a premise that can’t help but intrigue, as one truck driver, Paul Conroy (Reynolds), finds himself waking up in a coffin buried six-feet under in the Iraqi desert. What ensures is a taut, gripping and, needless to say, claustrophobic film, that ensnares the audience up until its breathtaking climax.

It’s hard to imagine any film to enthral when confined within the inches of a deathbed for its duration, so it falls to Reynold’s performance to propel the film through a lot of not much happening. Reynolds – whose CV previously sported rubber-faced buffoonery, crappy comedies and snarky wit – plays a relatively straight role here but his undeniable charisma and familiarity that an unknown couldn’t muster is exactly what propels this film beyond its showboating conceit.

Reynold’s completely convinces of as a blue-collar truck driver in an unenviable situation. With just a mobile phone and a lighter (there’s no point hiring a pretty face if we can’t see it), he struggles to reach out for help as a man who has no idea where he is, trapped underground with just the worms and the thoughts of his encroaching death keeping him company.

It’s not exactly easy cinema, often bold and not afraid to pull punches.

It’s within the pacing and script that director Rodrigo Cortés manages to balance the action, unravelling each beat methodically, managing to heighten the tension of each phone call and every creak of Paul’s wooden box. It rarely falters and even when it does – a brief visit from a less-than-friendly snake appears nothing but filler – it still proves nail-biting stuff.

Technically, if we’re to indulge in such things, the setting doesn’t impound the direction. The camera moves inventively in and outside of the box, without substituting the constant sense of constraint. Cortés continually pours further bitter ingredients into the mix, whether trickling sand or insufferable bureaucrats on the end of the phone,  every new flavour adding to the dry dirt filling that is Buried’s sandwich – by closing credits, it can all get rather hard to swallow.

However, Buried is a brave film. On paper, it sounds as boring as…well paper. Reynold’s delivers the performance of his career in an action movie set inside a box. It can get a little preachy at times but Buried proves that war is hell, even if it’s only seen from inside a box.

‘spray rating: 4/5

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You probably fancy Scarlett Johansson, even though you might need three or four attempts at writing her name before you’re convinced you’ve done it correctly. Even so, you think ‘great rack!’ or whatever.

When she split with her husband Ryan ‘Who He?’, many of you will have started daydreaming about a time when maybe, just maybe, you might bump into her and you’ll fall in lust with each other for a night of passion.

Well forget about it. Why? Johnasson is apparently now stepping out with pumice faced thesp, Sean Penn. A man, we assume, is yearned for because of his talents.

Naturally, we have to make the obligatory mention of the age difference. Scarlett is, of course, ‘Fit Age’ and Sean is ‘Well Over One Hundred Years Old’ – he must be as he had sex with Madonna when she was but a itty bitty thing.

Apparently, Scarlett and Sean (a couple can’t merge the names of in a sufficiently tabloidy way, unless you don’t mind us calling them ‘Scean’, which sounds a bit like ‘Scone’) first bumped their uglies together in January while staying at LA’s notorious Chateau Marmont hotel.

We say ‘notorious’ but we have no idea why.

The pair apparently bonded over the completely erotic topic of charity work in Haiti. Yes, really. All that disaster is enough to give anyone a hard-on/wide-on right?

A source blithers:

‘Scarlett first reached out to Sean when she was planning to visit Haiti with Oxfam,’

‘She knew Sean was living there in a tent and turned to him for advice.’

Sorry? What? She fell for him because he was living in a tent? What is this? Hollywood A-List Hottie (trademark Nuts) falls for wealthy hobo?

The source adds:

‘Scarlett’s smitten with him’

So there you have it. Another couple who will get muttered at when they walk down the street together in a ‘what is she doing with that?! He looks like a perished shoe’.

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Celebrities are brilliant aren’t they? They’re always doing really stupid things and, in the event that they’re not, we can just make stuff up about them because they’ve got this misguided notion that all publicity is good publicity. You try telling that to John Leslie that.

Anyway, because they’re both on the rebound, everyone has decided that Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds are now swapping bodily fluids in some kind of depressing sex-based grief triste.

Naturally, there are those that think this is the chance for these two sobbing celebrities to start afresh, after Reynolds got dumped by Scarlett Johansson and Bullock’s marriage to Jesse James collapsed under the sheer weight of mediocrity.

And because Sandra Bullock seems kinda nice and Ryan Reynolds is fancied by women who stare wistfully at cushions in catalogues, wishing that they had some kind of sex-life, the pair have almost been willed together by all and sundry.

Well, apart from those among you who really couldn’t give a flying teste.

And lo, it came to pass, speculation actually made two people get together and the longtime friends decided that it might be nice if they saw the New Year in with each other, both crying uncontrollably and wiping each other’s snot bubbles from their famous nostrils, before showering each other’s bloated, puffy faces with kisses and, of course, both gently sobbing at the moment of climax.

Then, the post-sex ritual of endless discussions about how they’ve been hurt in the past and blah blah blah. What ever happened to celebrities that took loads of drugs and were always on-hand for a vicious put-down? None of this crying business.

A source confirms that Sandra, 72, invited the newly single and therefore vulnerable Ryan, 344, to spend NYE with her in some restaurant in Texas (where they serve meat cooked on electric chairs). He quickly accepted.

“Sandra planned all along to spend New Year’s at the restaurant with friends.”

“And she was thrilled that Ryan accepted her invitation to join in.”

Brilliant. So they probably healed each other with a mixture of wallowing coitus and indigestion. What a lovely couple they made (etc)

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Mud once sang “Try to imagine a Christmas all alone. That’s where I’ll be since you left me. My tears could melt the snow. What can I do without you? I got no place, no place to go. It’ll be lonely this Christmas without you to hold, it’ll be lonely this Christmas, lonely and cold.”

Well, that is going to be the soundtrack to most of Hollywood at this rate as sightings of famous people driving around with all their possessions in bin bags in the backseats have rocketed lately.

Nip/Tuck’s Dylan Walsh has filed for divorce, Vanessa Hudgens and Zac Efron have parted, Jennifer Carpenter is divorcing Michael C. Hall, Anna Friel and David Thewlis hate each other, Eva Longoria is going to cry for Christmas and now, Scarlett Johansson is all set to throw plates at Ryan Reynolds because she can’t stand the sight of him.

There must be some Batman villain behind all this. We assume it must be The Riddler who has put some kind of anti-love potion in America’s mince pies. You just wait for a cryptic message to be written above Hollywood by a plane, leaving Batman and Robin to mull over it like monkeys staring at a cash machine.

Anyway, Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds haven’t just decided to call it quits, rather, they’ve announced that that hate each other after…

“long and careful consideration on both our parts.”

That’s good of them isn’t it? The joint statement continued…

“We entered our relationship with love and it’s with love and kindness we leave it,”

“While privacy isn’t expected, it’s certainly appreciated.”

Apparently, the pair have been living apart for several months, which again, just shows how inconsiderate celebrities are now. They didn’t even leave any clues lying around for us to speculate on. This grown-up approach to affairs of the heart seems to be catching on, leaving people like us to grind our teeth in anger.

You wouldn’t get that with The Riddler.

Still, Ryan Reynolds won’t be lonely for long. Only last month, he was named People magazine’s ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ while Scarlett was given the title of ‘Babe of the Year’ by Esquire. If they spend the next month snotty-nosed and weeping uncontrollably on street corners, they might not look so hot then (not that it would stop most of you trying to stick your tongues down their throats while they’re on the rebound).

So what started the rot? Well, a short time ago in October, Reynolds called Johansson “the best part” of his life and that marriage hadn’t changed their relationship.

However, it seems one of them wanted to start a family and the other one didn’t, which kicked off a series of fights that saw the pair dumping each other.

Our money is on Reynolds being super needy and wanting babies, leaving Scarlett Johansson pointing at her stomach saying ‘You want me to turn this beautiful thing into a butcher’s slab? You can kiss my shiny buttocks sunbeam!’

With a few days left ’til Christmas Day itself, we’re hoping for another 4037 break-ups, thereby ensuring that estate agents in LA and stalkers have something of a bumper month of activity and learning how to smile while they do unspeakable things to vulnerable celebrities.

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You know what women love? Comic book superheroes. That’s women all over, isn’t it  – noses forever buried in graphic novels, absently scratching their privates through their sweatpants.

And men! Are they ever going to get enough of that Ryan Reynolds character? Cinemas are FULL of typical men swooning whenever Ryan Reynolds drops a signature witticism (“What?” or “Hi”), then going all quiet and thoughtful when he takes off his shirt.

Wait, no – scratch that, reverse it. Women like Ryan Reynolds, don’t they? And it’s men that like superheroes. So a superhero movie starring Ryan Reynolds like The Green Lantern – appealing as it will to both genders – must be the perfect date movie, right? Wrong. The Green Lantern is rubbish, and we’ve got the trailer to prove it.

The Green Lantern. The Green Lantern! You know, he’s, uh, green and he has a, um, lantern…

You see, this is the problem with The Green Lantern – he’s a third-rate superhero. In fact, on a superhero popularity scale, where 10 is Superman and 1 is Bananaman, The Green Lantern probably scores a solid 3, mainly because:

1. He’s not actually The Green Lantern – he’s one of a bunch of people who get covered in green nuclear jizz, or something, then have to join this special gang. The film should in fact be called A Green Lantern. Presumably Hollywood didn’t go down this route because they’d have to secure the services of Jessica Tandy and some fried whimsical tomatoes.

2. He finds a magic ring which wields great power… Hmm, derivative much? It’s just like this Tom and Jerry movie.

3. It’s a lantern. Ooh, a lantern! Not exactly THOR HAMMER OF THE GODS, is it?

And it stars Ryan Reynolds.

But can any movie really claim to star Ryan Reynolds? Wouldn’t it be more honest to say that some films also include Ryan Reynolds, mugging and flexing away in a corner?

Still, we’d better check out The Green Lantern trailer just to be sure.

Did you get all that? Wasn’t it funny when he said there was water “in the tap”? What about when he meets Kryten from Red Dwarf? And why was Peter Sarsgaard made up as Ned Flanders from The Simpsons? And what was all that business about flying around inside a Finish dishwasher powerball?

Oh, we don’t know. We’re so confused. We can’t tell if the The Green Lantern is actually going to be rubbish.

We’d better send one of our female writers to see for free, with snacks.

Just to, you know, check.

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Fanboy idol Hugh Jackman knows when he puts on the mutton chops that he is onto a winner.

So much so that, now he’s back again as the Gillette razor clawed Wolverine, he’s barely made any effort to make this entry stick out from the rest of the franchise.

Let’s get one thing straight: This is better than X3: The Last Stand. Watching a lobster snip at your genitalia is a less gruelling experience. Not to say that Wolverine is a good film – not when it throws franchise continuity around with such reckless abandon. If you like Bryan Singer‘s two-stroke masterclass in comic book movie-making, then you may feel slightly bemused after this film is finished chewing up the established Wolverine facts then spitting them out, forming a somewhat hairy mess.

This is, literally, the full origin story (don’t mention Japan); we see him as a bone-clawed child (Original trilogy continuity error #1: He was given claws according to X1 and 2), then whipped through every war before joining a crime fighting group in Africa. These early scenes are the most enjoyable, a miniature team of X-Men raiding a base and using all their powers is enthralling and exactly the type of dynamic a film like this needs. The bunch of mutants features a decent who’s who as well: Dominic Monaghan is great but all too brief in his Electro-like appearance. Ryan Reynolds notches another superhero movie on his bedpost and makes a good wise-cracking Deadpool and then there’s Will.i.am, some sarky Asian dude and a bloke who has popped up in Lost.

The team is lead by a young Striker (Danny Houston) – of whom you know from X2 as Weapon X leader – here representing none of the subtle repression of a man scorned by mutant atrocity on his family. Now he is a panto villain. One that looks like a young Gordon Brown, too. Joining him on the evil side of the fence is Sabretooth, once a little furry package in the first X-Men, now shaven down and possessing the ability to string sentences together. Here as Wolverine’s brother, he runs around killing people and little else. Shame, as Liev Schreiber is a decent character actor and playing a thug-for-hire role really doesn’t provide anything for him to grab hold of.

This film is called Wolverine, though, and any team angle is soon dropped to follow the hardest man in a vest since John McClane. Reliable as Jackman is, this is just a retread, trying so hard to explain everything that it feels redundant, like a greatest hits collection – getting his leather jacket, bike, claws, memory erased, bouffant etc.

When it isn’t concerned with doing this, it’s packing in the mutant cameos. As said before, the X-mercenaries make fleeting appearances and joining them is baby Cyclops, Prof. X, Blob and fan favourite Gambit.

Taking a step aside for a moment to discuss Gambit; on any level of conception it’s hard to understand the casting of the role. Not being a 33-year-old virgin, our X-Men knowledge is minimal, but from what we remember of the guy, he was a slick rogue with an edge. Not a blank-faced OC extra with as much charisma as a pickled onion.

The film is an average romp, having none of the intensity nor the atmosphere of Singer’s films but, thankfully, not being the hyperactive, overcooked turkey of X3. Jackman wears the role like a comfortable slipper but the script and idea are unfocused and what could have been a dark, distinctive film ends up repeating much of what has come before and becoming cameo reliant.

On Blu-Ray the film is packed with some great extras; a Stan Lee conversation, deleted scenes, commentaries and behind the scenes features. Along with the excellent picture and sound on Blu-Ray, it also comes with a copy on DVD and a digital copy for your ipod – a nice little package.

Wolverine is a neutered film, trying to appeal to kiddies can never make this mutant go full berserker. Unfortunately, this means that much like the rest of the film, it never gets its claws deep enough into the really good stuff.

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