An Alien vs. Predator movie is something fans have long sought. In Predator 2, in fact, we saw an Alien skull mounted on the wall of the Predator's ship as a trophy, and the two species have already slugged it out in several comic book series.

A movie like this need not necessarily be silly-it's a great chance to cross-pollinate the two flagging franchises, shake up the respective mythologies and narrative conventions and make something greater than the sum of its already impressive parts.

But it's Hollywood, so why bother with that originality crap when you can make a lesser, wholly derivative work?

While Alien vs. Predator is a pleasant enough theater experience for sci-fi fans, one is forced to concede that it ain't no Predator, or Predator 2; nor is it Alien (Ridley Scott!), nor Aliens (James Cameron-huzzah!), nor Alien3 (David Fincher!), nor Alien: Resurrection (Ripley clone playing basketball in a scary way!).

And Sanaa Lathan, who plays the cranky rockclimber who eventually becomes this installment's warrior-survivor character, she ain't no Arnold, nor is she a Sigourney Weaver, nor even a Danny Glover or a Winona Ryder. She's not even a Jenette Goldstein as Pvt. Vasquez, or a Carrie Henn as Newt (Remember the little girl in Aliens? Man, she was tough!). As near as I can figure, Sanaa Lathan is probably something in the neighborhood of a Carolyn Campbell in Aliens: Resurrection, who played a character I don't remember called "anesthesiologist."

The movie is just about worth it for the few moments of Lance Henriksen that we are given, especially since in this movie he has a nasty cough and so probably won't be with us that much longer. It is kind of fun that Henriksen plays Charles Bishop Weyland, founder of the Weyland robotics corporation, thus giving us in one fell swoop: a) a reason why the android Bishop from Aliens was also played by Henriksen, since it makes fun sense that the android might be modeled after its ancestral creator, and b) an origin for the "Weyland" part of "Weyland-Yutani Corporation," which everyone knows is the evil corporation that keeps screwing with Sigourney Weaver in the far future. Since Charles Bishop Weyland seems like an OK guy, we can only assume that the evil was introduced from the Yutani side in a great Weyland-Yutani merger at some point in the middle future. Perhaps a movie could be made about that.

But details like this, and yes, good effects and decent action, don't save Alien Vs. Predator from its lousy dialogue, bland characters, rewarmed story bits and stupid pyramids.