When heroes clash, always bet on the guy with the big metal suit. Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood” was mowed down by Jon Favreau’s “Iron Man 2” at the North American box-office over the weekend; with an estimated $37.1 million gross, Scott’s lugubrious epic came in a distant second to the Marvel super-sequel, which earned $53 million in its second weekend.

“Robin Hood” did decent business internationally — about $74 million — so it won’t be considered a total failure. But it really should be. When everyone agrees that the production design and period costumes are the best thing about a movie called “Robin Hood”, something is seriously askew in the world.

Think about that for a little while, as you ready yourself for the “House” season finale tonight. Apparently they shot the whole thing with a Canon still camera. Interesting.

I am on Twitter. Specifically, here. I’d been posting to the @nowfilm account since TIFF last fall, but earlier this week I realized I should probably set up a personal account. The “Canadian celebrity trifecta” stuff seems more comfortable under my own name, where people can see it’s all happening to one guy instead of a collective corporate account.

So now I’m on Twitter. As if I didn’t already have enough ways to procrastinate.

In more important news, today marks the 20th anniversary of Jim Henson’s untimely death. I mention this because the Toronto Underground Cinema is honoring his memory tonight with a double-bill of “The Muppets Take Manhattan” and “Labyrinth”, screening in glorious 35mm.

(Well, maybe not “glorious”, since there’s no way quarter-century-old print of “Labyrinth” will compare to the restored Blu-ray disc, but they’ll still look pretty good.)

Now, I introduced a screening of “Labyrinth” last summer at Harbourfront Centre, and the love for that minor cult movie was kinda scary … I can only imagine what an actual Muppet movie will generate.

Jim Henson’s been gone for twenty years. A whole generation has grown up with an impostor Kermit. Jesus felted Christ, I feel old.

This week’s MSN Movies gallery exists specifically to give people a break from all the “Robin Hood” stuff. Instead, we feinted in the direction of “Letters to Juliet” and came up with a collection of movies that celebrate their given locations.

And yes, I thought about including “What Happened Was …” for the climactic Cannes sequence, but then I realized it might accidentally lead readers to watch the movie, and I just don’t want that on my conscience.

… not Russell Crowe, that’s for damn sure. Remember when he had a mercurial, almost dangerously wild screen presence? Yeah, he doesn’t do that any more. And “Robin Hood” — which pairs him once again with his laziest director, Ridley Scott — is easily the week’s most disappointing film.

Don’t believe me? Read on, dear friend …

“Just Wright“: Sometimes, modest aspirations are all a commercial picture needs. Sanaa Hamri’s gentle romance doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, or the star-crossed romance; all it does is ask Queen Latifah and Common to be charming at each other, which they do very well. I rather enjoyed myself.

“Letters to Juliet“: I would happily watch a movie where Amanda Seyfried and Vanessa Redgrave just drive around Tuscany for a couple of hours, but Gary Winick had to ruin it with a stupid finder-of-lost-loves plot, an unconvincing romantic dilemma for Seyfried and a truly awful supporting turn from Gael Garcia Bernal, who becomes less interesting every time I see him on screen. Neat trick, that.

“Mao’s Last Dancer”: Hey, Bruce Beresford’s still working! His latest is a drama about the Chinese ballet dancer Li Cunxin, who performed for the Communist regime in the 1980s. I missed it at TIFF last fall, but Rad was unimpressed … along with everyone else I know who’s seen it.

“Mother and Child”: After “Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her” and “Ten Tiny Love Stories”, I was pretty much done with Rodrigo Garcia’s mushy multicharacter dramas. So Susan caught his latest, and says it’s his best work. I will take her word for it.

“Robin Hood“: Imagine a movie about Sherwood Forest’s most beloved outlaw that is no fun whatsoever — just dreary, ugly and incredibly dull. That’s what you get with Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe’s latest collaboration, which styles itself as an origin story for a series no one on earth will ever want to see again. My review should be online shortly, but you really shouldn’t need any more persuading. UPDATE: Seriously, are you still thinking about going? Read the damn review!

“The Trotsky”: I have to admit, I really didn’t like this movie. Jacob Tierney’s a talented filmmaker, but this script — about a Montreal high-schooler convinced he’s the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky — is little more than a riff on Wes Anderson’s “Rushmore” that gravely misunderstands its source. (Max Fischer isn’t a hero, he’s a jerk.) And as much as I like Jay Baruchel, I found him incredibly annoying here, both in terms of character and performance. Rad liked it much more than I did, obviously.

One other thing you should know: The Toronto Underground Cinema opens its doors tonight (beneath a Chinatown mall at 186 Spadina Avenue) with a free double-feature of “Clue” and “Big Trouble in Little China”. I visited the theatre earlier this week for a NOW Daily piece that should be online later today, and it’s the same great big space it was in the 1990s, when it was the Golden Classics Cinema. If you’re downtown this evening, and you’ve been hankering to see Jack Burton back on the big screen, I can think of nothing better to do.

The cover of this week’s NOW features Jay Baruchel, star of “The Trotsky”. I didn’t write the piece — it’s Rad’s first cover, actually — but I did pen the accompanying sidebar about other cinematic student radicals, which felt like a miniature version of an MSN gallery, and should be approached in that spirit.

You may also want to check out my overview of the Toronto Russian Film Festival, if you’re looking for something appropriately dour and/or different this weekend. Toronto doesn’t get a lot of Russian cinema — not even at TIFF — so this is likely to be your only chance to see “Bury Me Behind the Baseboard” or “The Man Who Knew Everything” on a big screen.

Of course, that may be a good thing. They’re kind of weird. But “Ward No. 6” is very good.

The 63rd Cannes Film Festival begins today, and once again I am not there to enjoy it. I could rationalize it easily enough — there’s plenty to do here at home, it’s not looking like a particularly great year for the Competition, and of course there’s always the possibility that once I got over there, I’d be trapped on the Continent by volcano ash, running up exorbitant hotel bills and missing the series finale of “Lost”.

Those are all valid points. And yet, I’d give almost anything to be there anyway. I had a wonderful time when I went to Cannes two years ago — sure, it was an exhausting whirlwind of constant activity, but it was a massive film festival in the south of France; you couldn’t ask for better venues to see films, or a more beautiful place to wander around between screenings.

(Yes, I know people complain, but it’s really not such a chore to spend hours standing in line with a Mediterranean breeze at one’s back.)

Ah, well. Cannes 2010 is starting, and I’m not there. But I do get to see “Robin Hood” tonight, just like all of my colleagues, and if I was so equipped, I could follow the festival with the Cannes iPhone app. That’s something, right?

Is it even news that “Iron Man 2” dominated the box office this weekend, pulling in $133.6 million in North America and an additional $57.2 million internationally? No, probably not.

The most interesting conversation to be had about “Iron Man 2” isn’t about the money, but about the movie itself, and what it represents for the genre. Matt Zoller Seitz has written a piece for Salon about his frustration with the limits of superhero movies, which is echoing through the blogosphere like Christopher Reeve’s mighty wail at the end of Richard Donner’s “Superman”. Jim Emerson tracks the more interesting responses and adds his own thoughts over at Scanners; you might want to take a look at that.

Me, well, I’m just happy for Robert Downey, Jr. “Iron Man 2” may have a few problems, but he isn’t one of them, and he richly deserves all the credit he’s reaping for its success.

Oh, and speaking of superheroes: Tom Cruise is telling people Brad Bird is directing the next “Mission: Impossible” movie. Now, Tom Cruise says a lot of things, but if that’s true … well, Bird did make “The Incredibles”, one of the very best superhero movies ever, so that could be something worth getting excited about. You know, once it’s confirmed.