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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But now that he’s had 48 stitches in his face, that’s all over. Now we’ll never have the pleasure of watching Vinnie Jones starring in would-be classics like Gimme A Room Wiv A Fackin View, ‘Owerd’s Bleedin’ Bellend and Hullabaloo Over Georgie and Bonnie’s Pictures? I’ll Give You A Hullabaloo Over Georgie and Bonnie’s Pictures Yer Filfy Nonce.

Anyway, nobody’s been charged for Vinnie Jones’ brawl. We could have said that to begin with, really.

One of the most disappointing things about meeting your heroes is that they’re never how you expect them to be. Comedians aren’t funny, TV presenters aren’t always friendly and actors are hardly ever charismatic without a script. But not all celebrities will let you down like that.

For instance, when Joe Pesci responded to a fan’s request for an autograph by allegedly attacking him – that fan must have been so happy, like he was an extra in Casino or something. And when Vinnie Jones last week allegedly reacted to similar fan recognition by starting the mother of all bar brawls, there must have been the same thrill – only on a much smaller scale, obviously, because Joe Pesci is a famous moviestar and Vinnie Jones is a bloke with a tree stump for a head.

But Vinnie Jones’ willingness to do what everyone wants and plough into people like a fleshy threshing machine as soon as they even so much as looks at him comes at a heavy price. During last Thursday’s scuffle, Jesse Bickett – the man who claims the fight was started when he recognised Vinnie Jones as Juggernaut from X-Men 3 – allegedly smashed a beer glass into Jones’ face, causing enough damage to require 48 stitches.

Still, although both Vinnie Jones and Jesse Bickett both spent a brief amount of time behind bars following the punch-up, it looks like they’ve both gotten away with it. Vinnie Jones was never charged and now, as TMZ reports, the charges have been dropped against Bickett as well:

Prosecutors have dismissed three counts of aggravated assault against 24-year-old Jesse Bickett, after he turned the actor’s face into a mangled mess of blood and glass last week. Minnehaha County State’s attorney Dave Nelson said, “After we had an opportunity to review all the evidence, we thought that the incident with which Mr. Bickett was charged was a result of a mutual combat situation.”

As for the rest of us, it looks like we’ll never get to know exactly what happened last Thursday night. Both Vinnie Jones and Jesse Bickett blame each other for starting the fight, and that’s not likely to change any time soon.

But, if the X-Men story is true, it just goes to show the level of bad feeling that Vinnie Jones has for X-Men 3. Let’s hope the feeling isn’t mutual  for everyone who starred in the movie because, let’s face it, nobody wants to be karate-kicked in the face by an angry Kelsey Grammer because he accidentally got called Beast, do they?

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Seriously, don’t. There’s so much more to Vinnie Jones than being in an X-Men film, like being the mute thug in that John Travolta thriller from seven years ago, or being the ninth male lead in Eurotrip. Honestly, the man is an artist.

So don’t tell Vinnie Jones that you recognise him from X-Men because, if you do, he’ll beat you up until he gets arrested. Which seems to be more or less exactly what happened in South Dakota last week.

Vinnie Jones is something of a national treasure. He just seems to symbolise the British psyche better than anyone else on Earth. Maybe it’s because of his grit and no-nonsense attitude, maybe it’s because he looks like he’s been genetically designed to participate in shitfaced 3am bottlefights outside pikey nightclubs or maybe it’s because he disappeared to America at the first sniff of money but, either way, Vinnie Jones is British through and through.

And just to prove how British he is, Vinnie Jones got himself arrested on Thursday night in South Dakota after allegedly getting into a bar brawl because somebody looked at him funny. Our hearts are literally bursting with pride right now, you have no idea. AP has details:

Police said Jones, 43, got into a scuffle late Thursday at Wiley’s Tavern and suffered cuts on his face from a beer glass. A police sergeant said Jones apparently charged at Jesse Bickett of Montrose, who hit Jones with the glass. One of Bickett’s roommates, Juan Barrera, said they were playing pool when Jones asked to join, then got offended when one of them asked if he was “that guy from X-Men.”

Now, to be fair, if this version of events is true it sounds like these idiots had it coming. How dare they recognise Vinnie Jones from the largest-grossing movie of his career! That came out like two years ago – if Bickett or Barrera had any sense, they’d have chosen to recognise Vinnie Jones from one of his more recent movies like The Riddle, The Heavy, The Condemned, Strength & Honour, Tooth & Nail or Garfield: A Tale Of Two Kitties.

When will these people learn that Vinnie Jones only likes to be recognised as the star of movies with titles that begin with the word ‘The’, or contain two randomly-chosen words with an ampersand in the middle, or are funny cartoons about lazy orange cats? Because, honestly, when it comes to Vinnie Jones, that knowledge is basically gospel.

Anyway, according to reports Vinnie Jones was quite badly injured when he was hit in the face with the glass, with his nose allegedly being cut to the bone. That’s the sort of injury that’ll leave a nasty scar, and it’s bound to have a negative effect on Vinnie’s movie career.

It means that, from now on, Vinnie Jones is only going to be cast as silent, glowering, goonish criminal hooligan henchmen in everything he stars… oh, hang on.

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First he stopped jumping around like a particularly stupid chimp, he stopped going on about Scientology in public – though he did see some of his private video collection released, much to the delight/terror (delete as appropriate) of the general public – and he’s seeing some rave reviews flying about for his small role in Tropic Thunder. So what next?

Well, it’s obvious isn’t it? Star in a superhero film, and get someone like Sam Raimi on board to produce. Which is, apparently, what’s being pushed for by Tom Cruise and Warner Bros, who own the rights to Sleeper – a short running comic book series from a few years back. Well, Raimi’s already on board, but you get the point.

And you can’t fault the man’s logic.

The rumoured decision happily fits in with our theory that Hollywood is physically incapable of having an original thought, ever, ever, ever. It also fits in with the current logic that if you make a film of a comic book it will make a lot of geeks wet with anticipation, thus creating millions upon millions of dollars to line the executive’s pockets with. And we all know how much they love money over there in movieland.

Valuing cash over creativity, honesty or integrity? Say it ain’t so! Ahem.

It appears, if reports are to be believed, that the latest in the line of films the studios hope will emulate the success of Spider-Man 3 and The Dark Knight is an adaptation of Sleeper – a limited series that ran from 2003-05 from the Wildstorm Universe and written by Ed Brubaker, whose writing credits include some work on X-Men and Captain America comics, amongst many others.

It does strike us that such a smalltime comic wouldn’t be the best of the potential earners out there for the studios and actors, but hey ho – it’s their money to waste and, who knows, they might get it right.

They won’t. But, you know – we are the bastions of truth, glory and optimism in the world of the internet. Wait, what? We’re not? Ah crap, Stu isn’t going to be happy…

The connection of Tom Cruise with the project has come about through the usual web of lies/rumours that prop up countless websites across the world, though it did originate at somewhere half-decent in the shape of The Hollywood Reporter, meaning we can leave it to them to explain the finer points:

Written by Ed Brubaker with art by Sean Phillips, “Sleeper,” which ran from 2003-05, centers on an operative whose fusion with an alien artifact makes him impervious to pain and allows him to pass it on to others through skin contact. He is placed undercover in a villainous organization by an intelligence agency and falls for a member of the group, named Miss Misery.

Which sounds absolutely ideal for some big names to get attached to, a plethora of nerds to claim they read the book when it first came out (even though they picked it up off eBay on hearing the news a film was in the making) and a film to come out and get critically panned, while earning a small amount of cash.

You heard it here first.

We should also point out: superpowers afforded by the film adaptation still won’t allow Tom Cruise to keep pizzas warm using magic. Just thought we should point that out yet again.

And that's a mutant with the power to take any song you ever liked and ruin it by lazily babbling a lot of meaningless shit about tits over the top while waving a can of Pepsi Max around. But fear not – that'll all be changed with the new Wolverine prequel movie, because Will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas has just signed up for a role.

Rumours that signing Will.i.am up for the Wolverine film is just a ploy to make people think that painting Frasier blue and casting him as a monster in X-Men 3 was a comparatively decent idea are still unconfirmed.

Unless you're a 14-year-old boy with enough hormones to floor a moose, chances are that your favourite of the X-Men is Wolverine. He's got it all – a bad attitude, a Flock Of Seagulls haircut and dirty great bits of metal that shoot out of his knuckles. So, with this in mind, it'd have to take something pretty special to talk you out of going to see a movie all about Wolverine, wouldn't it?

After all, these kids will go and watch any old crap if it's got laser beams and fighting and destruction in it. They even went to see X-Men 3, even though Brett Ratner directed it. Brett Ratner, for christ's sake. So the Wolverine movie will be a no-brainer box office success when it opens in May 2009, even if the producers end up casting someone so massively unsuitable that it takes three or four minutes of dumbfounded silence just to let the news sink in at all.

Which is just as well, because Will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas has been cast as a see-though mutant in Wolverine. Reuters reports:

Black Eyed Peas singer Will.i.am will make his feature acting debut in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," the "X-Men" spinoff starring Hugh Jackman. Danny Huston, Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins also have joined the Fox project, and Ryan Reynolds is making a cameo. Gavin Hood ("Tsotsi") is directing. "Wolverine," set 17 years before the "X-Men" movies, traces the origins of the popular mutant superhero. Will.i.am, whose real name is William Adams, will play Wraith, a mutant with the power to turn himself translucent.

Hopefully Will.i.am's participation in the Wolverine movie won't just end with a minor role as someone who's invisible for most of the time – hopefully producers will see sense and let Will.i.am do the Wolverine theme tune too, Will Smith-style. It's bound to be brilliant, even if Will.i.am just takes a piece of music that everyone's already familiar with from a film or a TV advert, doesn't bother altering it at all, mumbles a load of obvious rhymes about it and then calls it Wolverine's Humps (Pepsi Max – Max Your Life). Which, let's face it, is exactly what he's bound to do.

Will.i.am's casting in the Wolverine movie helps to hide a bunch of other problems with the film, though, like the fact it'll be a prequel set 17 years before X-Men starring an actor who looks eight years older than he did in X-Men, and that if these X-Men Origins movies catch on, eventually we'll have to put up with one about Halle Berry. And that'll just be frighteningly dull.

However, let's not assume that Wolverine is beyond being saved just because Will.i.am is in it. Maybe if he sweet-talks the producers they'll find a role for his bandmate Fergie. And, let's be fair, there's not a movie in history that wouldn't have been improved by the addition of a mutant who can't stop wetting her knickers.

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Black Eyed Peas singer joins "Wolverine" cast – Reuters