I've never seen any of the Alien movies all the way through, just bits and pieces here and there. I still count the first Predator as a late-night USA Network favorite, but the sequels blew. But pit the two alien predators against one another, well, I'm so there! Like last summer's Freddy vs. Jason, any time you can get a couple of pop culture favorites on the screen together, by all means do so.

	Two aliens enter, one leaves. It's Mad Martian Beyond Thunderdome!

Heck, I think we should match up Arnold of Predator vs. super-Sigourney of Alien: Resurrection and judge the melee / fracas / rumpus / donnybrook / brouhaha that could ensue.

This brings to mind a few other ideas for movies that could face off our favorite creatures:

• Voldemort vs. Gandalf - I'm tempted to give the Harry Potter villain the edge, because I was never convinced the Lord of the Rings wizard could pull his tricks out of a hat all that much.

• Shrek vs. the Grinch - It's a battle of green freaks with irascible temperaments! Our roll call of personal insults would grow ten sizes that day!

• John Tesh vs. Yanni - A showdown for the new ages at Red Rock!

• Michael Moore vs. Al Franken to decide, once and for all, who is the most anti-Bush tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy theorist asshat.

• Ariel vs. Jasmine. It's a matchup of The Little Mermaid vs. Aladdin. Okay, this is a personal dream, and I've gone to an uncomfortable place. Please move along.

Think of it in current terms, an Alien Olympics. Events include camouflage stalking, human trap shooting, close-quarter javelin tosses and the 100 meter dash for your life.

Now, if you're a rabid fan of either franchise, stay away. Far, far away. You will HATE what they've done to your beloved beasts. The primal Aliens never had much personality anyway, but trying to make the technologically superior Predators out to be part of the team? Oh dear.

I could spend a few paragraphs punching holes in the plot and the premise, but seriously, did you come into this looking for accurate archaeological history? This ain't the National Geographic Channel. It's science-fiction, not science-non-fiction. If you want a quick introduction, there's an ancient pyramid 2,000 feet below Antarctica's ice shelf. When unsuspecting people arrive, it turns out to be part of an elaborate intergalactic rite of passage for the Predators to hunt Aliens with the help of sacrificial humans every one hundred years for several millennia. It's like a deadly game of Brigadoon, only with less singing. Yadda yadda yadda, anyone not oozing green stuff is dead meat in a close encounter of the lethal kind.

Isn't Antarctica really, really cold? Especially at night? No, no, can't do it, mustn't try to use logic or physics here. Can't do it, would just leave me snickering. More than I did.

The ragtag bunch of soon-to-be-dead people is your basic world tour of stereotypes, from the corporate stooge arranging the trip, the sassy black woman, wacky Italian, stuttering Scot and assorted security henchmen. Don't bother remembering any of their names.

Director Paul W.S. Anderson brought us Soldier and Event Horizon, so he's got a pedigree in sci-fi crapfests. No wonder the movie's tagline was "Whoever wins, we lose." Yeah, the audience will lose all sense of symmetry, all sense of uplifting filmmaking and lose respect for themselves for laying down seven bucks even for a matinee.

Really, AVP is not as violent as I anticipated. The gore was kept to a minimum for a movie like this, relegated to various impalings and all the slices are off camera. No doubt this was to keep the rating to PG-13 and bring in the young teen males who don't give a flip if a movie has nuance or a sensible story thread. I know I didn't care back then. Stuff blows up? People die in interesting ways? Dude, I'm there! Wait. No hot chicks in skimpy clothes? Well, I guess you can get enough of that by watching Olympic beach volleyball alone in your bedroom.

If you're looking for high-class composition, why the heck would you even consider watching AVP? Honestly, I can't believe you are reading the review. But if you enjoy the WAW, World Alien Wrestling, you might not hate the short (only an hour-and-a-half long) yet deadly low-brow action flick. Let's get it on! Ooh, yeah!