Film review: Alien vs Predator. Alien vs. Predator turns out to be as gruesomely entertaining as other respectable action films, with some solid qualities, courtesy of director, Paul W. S. Anderson.

It is a prequel to Alien (1979) and sequel to Predator (1986).

The idea of a film depicting the face-off between the two 'franchise monsters' had been bandied about development offices for some ten years before Mr Anderson took on this project.

Alien vs Predator is set not in outer space, but in a Jules Verne world beneath the surface of the planet in an incalculably ancient pyramid buried 2,000 feet beneath the Antarctic ice cap.

Discovered by the billionaire industrialist Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen - providing a link to James Cameron's 1986 Alien sequel, Aliens), the pyramid becomes the object of an expedition by assorted scientists.

Weyland hires an ecological tour guide, Alexa Woods (Sanaa Lathan), to lead his group to the buried temple, which turns out to contain a giant mother Alien just waiting to breed new offspring.

The Aliens have been hatched on command to provide prey for a new group of Predator hunters, who have to earn their stripes by killing their species' most dangerous foe.

The humans, including the Italian actor Raoul Bova as an archaeologist, and Ewan Bremner as a geologist, don't have much to do in Alien vs Predator, but put the plot in motion and stand back to watch it work, a precarious position that eventually claims most of them.

It can seem at times just a little too far-fetched even for fantasy, and the film turns into a cold but occasionally impressive special-effects extravaganza.

Between the Predators dripping their glow-in-the-dark green blood and the Aliens' getting their rubber cement mucous all over everything, this is certainly a very sticky, entertaining film, though not ultimately a very frightening or commanding one.

Directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, Starring Sanaa Lathan, Raoul Bova, Ewen Bremner and Lance Henriksen. Cert 15. Dur. 110 mins.