Remember the Fifties, when husky film heroes battled such hairy horrors as Them! , Tarantula and The Deadly Mantis?

Well, the bugs returned with a vengeance in the late Nineties, first in Men in Black, and then a whole army of them from outer space in this violent, exciting, ultra-nasty movie for fans of modern sci-fi.

There's some good tongue-in-cheek black humour, which adds to the ferocious action, and the two leads keep the balance of comedy and emotion to just about the right level.

When the brainy bugs obliterate Buenos Aires, they pave the way for blood-scrunching inter-planetary warfare.

The battles that follow make for pretty thrilling viewing, with amazing digitally realised arachnids, although one siege at a fort is strictly cowboys and Indiebugs, as the aliens clamber up the ramparts waving pincers or whatever, while fire-breathing mother bugs bring up the rear.

Heroine Denise Richards (then wife of Charlie Sheen) would surely have bled to death from the massive pincer wound she seems to have forgotten by the end!