Snakes alive! Some Hollywood suit with a big shiny desk has deemed the world ready for a sequel to 1997's slithery thriller Anaconda.

First time around a bunch of A-List celebrities - Jon Voight, Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson - took turns being digested in the tum of the insatiable serpent.

This time it's strictly B-list, with Coronation Street's Matthew Marsden joined by a gang of "I can place the face but not the name" thesps destined for the big squeeze.

Dr Jack Byron (Marsden) thinks he's discovered an anti-ageing serum derived from the flower of the rare Blood Orchid, which grows deep in the Borneo jungle.

"Are we talking about a pharmaceutical equivalent of the Fountain of Youth?" inquires once medical company executive. "It could be bigger than Viagra!" opines another.

With such priceless dialogue behind them, Jack and his crew - rugged skipper-with-a-drink-problem Johnny Messner, blonde research bird KaDee Strickland and irritating computer geek Eugene Morris - sail forth.

Joining them are an assortment of jobbing actors - Morris Chestnut, Salli Richardson Whitfield et al - taking the role of mobile larder for the giant anaconda roaming the undergrowth.

You get some idea of the IQ level this routine thriller is pitched at when the director feels the need to add the caption 'New York' to a cityscape including the Empire State Building.

From then on it's thrills-by-numbers as the sneaky serpent effortlessly glides behind the boat or through the undergrowth picking off the minor characters before being obliged to make a meal of the major ones.

There's a nicely rendered scene when the old hulk slips over a waterfall and the scares are of the kind where you genuinely wish everybody would stop walking waist-deep through water.

However, director Dwight Little - an old hand at low-budget horror - offers nothing new even if he occasionally puts the squeeze on your nerve endings.

Tim Evans