BORN AGAIN NIGHTMARE; The heroine might be dead, but thanks to DNA magic SIMON ROSE discovers that it's business as usual.

ALIEN RESURRECTION

(18, rental)

At the end of the woeful Alien 3 there was one consolation - surely there couldn't be yet another sequel. With Ripley, the shaven-haired heroine of the Alien trilogy, pregnant by the alien queen and martyring herself to save mankind, the series was surely dead and gone?

But we had reckoned without the life-resuscitating movie gimmick that is DNA. If it is feasible to recreate slavering, carnivorous dinosaurs for Jurassic Park, how hard could it be to use DNA to bring Ripley back from the grave?

There was the thorny problem of Sigourney Weaver vowing never to play Ripley again. But, hey, it's amazing how short movie stars' memories are once they see those cheques with six noughts on the end. In this case, eleven million dollars brought about a change of heart, even though Weaver hung on to her hair this time around.

Remarkably, almost 20 years since the original Alien, Ripley remains practically the only successful example of an action heroine in the movies. Supergirl fell flat, insipid Batgirl got the push, GI Jane died, and Tank Girl tanked. I realised why this might be at the recent Baftas as Weaver passed my table. Well over six feet tall, she's pretty scary even when glammed up. In alien combat mode, toting enough hardware to invade a small island, she's terrifying even though she's now the wrong side of 50.

Two hundred years after her death, a team of scientists have cloned Ripley from a scrap of DNA. Although she looks human, part of her is alien. However, it's not Ripley the boffins are after but the alien creature growing in her belly. They plan to nurture and clone it, hoping to make a fortune by creating the ultimate killing machine.

Naturally, the scientists believe they can tame the aliens - haven't they watched the previous films, or what? Just as naturally, Ripley knows they can't. When a gang of smugglers, including Winona Ryder, arrive in their spaceship, The Betty, the aliens soon escape from the prison and run amok. And we're back in familiar territory, with lots of gunfire and aliens chasing handy, human-sized snacks down corridors. Many questions strike us. Which side is part-alien Ripley on? How come the reconstructed Ripley has the same memories as the original one? Who's her hairdresser? And, most importantly, how come they're still in business?

Weaver gives the film what gravitas it has. Ryder is ineffectual - some might say her acting's robotic. There are some great scares, lots of gore and fab effects, and it's streets ahead of the dire Alien 3. But the flabby plot is unoriginal and there's none of the subtlety or genius of the first two Alien films. Fifteen minutes from the end, it all goes completely off the rails, coming over like a sub-standard episode of Dr Who. HHH