I've been pretty disappointed at the poor quality of the movies that have come out recently, so I set myself a bit of a challenge: To watch the majority of the latest blockbuster releases and see if I've been choosing badly, or if, as I suspect, Hollywood has actually forgotten hw to make good films.

Today's offering: Alien Vs Predator.

I like the Alien movies. I don't like comic book movies and I'm pretty indifferent to the Predator movies, so I went into this film determined not to like it.

And for the first hour, I didn't. From the outset, it was screamingly easy to see what was going on, and who was going to survive. The Alien and Predator films have all been about suspense and human drama, both of which were lamentably lacking in this film.

To be honest though, I wasn't expecting a classic. This film has been many years in the making, just waiting for someone to bring the project so beloved of comic book fans to the big screen. I've never read an AvP book, so don't have anything to base a comparison on, but I'm pretty sure this would satisfy anyone who had read them.

The whole point of the film is to set up a wanton, all out, hand to hand battle between the two most famous alien killers in moviedom. The one big unforgivable failing of this film is that it tries just too hard to involve the humans in the plot. An entire hour of setup is just too much.

Once the actual film does start, the enjoyment begins, with a great early sequence of an Alien being spun by the tail by a Predator. Cinematic gold! This is what we've come to see, the Acid-blooded ones getting their asses kicked in fine fashion. I was determined to hate this film but that one sequence won me over.

From then on we have another half an hour of quality ass-kicking, with a predictable but nonetheless satisfying alliance formed between Predators and Humans.

I could really have done without all the ancient history stuff, but by then I just wanted to see the next fist fight and didn't really care if the Dreadlocked ones had been the founding fathers of ancient American civilisation.

Overall, if you ignore the first two thirds of this 90 minute slugfest it's enjoyable, but your enjoyment relies heavily on whether you want to see Aliens getting beaten down in hand-to-hand combat. If you don't, don't waste your money. If you do, get in there and cheer!