Species

Is 'Species' a groundbreaking, visionary SF movie? No, of course not. Is it silly, trashy, but FUN b-grade exploitation SF in the tradition of Tobe Hooper's 'Lifeforce'? You bet! It isn't quite as entertaining as 'Lifeforce', the original naked space chick movie, but it's a still pretty good way to waste an hour and a half of your life. Why it gets slammed so much is beyond me. Maybe people just don't have a sense of humour. The opening of the movie is terrific. In a lab we see a cold scientist (Ben Kingsley) overseeing the murder of a young girl (Michelle Williams), imprisoned in a glass case. Only she escapes by showing some super human strength. She is immediately pursued by dozens of soldiers, but manages to elude them. We then learn she is in fact a genetic experiment, a mixing of extraterrestrial and human DNA. Kingsley heads up a task force consisting of Michael Madsen, Alfred Molina, Marg Helgenberger and Forest Whitaker, each a specialist in a different field. Pretty soon our alien fugitive mutates into a gorgeous blonde (Natasha Henstridge), who spends most of her time topless. Kingsley and company face a race against time, they must capture the horny alien girl before she screws guys to death(?) or something... Who knows. Henstridge is great to look at and the above average cast give it their best shot with the lame dialogue and cliched scenes. Whitaker's empath character quickly irritates with his constant stating the bleedin' obvious, but I always get a kick out of watching Madsen, here in stereotypical tough guy mode. 'Species' is big dumb fun.

Not all movies have to be intense and hard to figure out. Sometimes they can just be fun, and this one is.

You have to suspend disbelief on a few technical scientific things, such as sending a message from SETI into outer space, remember that radio waves travel at the speed of light, and the nearest star to use is 4.3 light years away. So at BEST it would take 8 years to send/receive a message, but most stars in our galaxy are 50,000 light years away or so, so the message to one of those would take 100,000 years to send/receive.

Then we can't create DNA of a human, how are we going to create the DNA of an Alien species from scratch given just the data about it? But don't worry about those details, just have fun with it, watch the pretty little half-alien girl kill with much gore.. And the team of experts they send to catch the now fully-grown woman/alien is kind of fun too. Very cliché characters, but still fun.

I like the deep, hard-to-understand movies as well, but this one kept me entertained all the way through. Not the greatest movie ever made but not boring either. A fun B-movie type science fiction/horror movie, but with good actors.

I'm giving it an 8, which to me means, "liked it", whereas a 6 to me would mean "it was OK". It was more than OK so I give it an 8.

Some scientists working for the government tamper with a DNA sequence they got from a message from outer space. The subject turns into a little girl with amazing superhuman powers. She escapes and turns into a beautiful woman (Natasha Herstridge) who wants to mate and produce others like her. A team led by a head scientist (Ben Kingsley!) try to track her down.

OK--it's kind of silly but this moves quickly and is well-done. There are many excellent, if gruesome, special effects and the SIL creature at the end is truly astounding. The script is good (considering) and it actually makes sense...if you don't think about it too much.

Acting varies--Kingsley is TERRIBLE in his role. Michael Madsen is pretty good as part of the team as are Marg Helgenberger and (especially) Forest Whitaker. Herstridge is certainly beautiful but can't act--but the role doesn't call for acting.

I'm giving it an 8. It's no classic but it moves quickly and I was never bored.

Dennis Feldman's 'Species' is a severely underrated science fiction film from the 90s. The film touches on many themes, including the meaning of life, human desires, specifically procreation, human interaction, kindness/empathy, selfishness, fear, manipulation, intuition, following orders. It does so in a way that is mostly sublime enough that it comes across as genuine. For example there is a fairly believable romance buried in there underneath layers of alien slime. The dialog is mostly well written and to the point, the actors are great and there's lots of attention to detail. Combine that with some great and grotesque visuals, courtesy of the late Hans Ruedi Giger and some Cronenbergian body horror and you're in for a fascinating ride through Los Angeles.

The dialog doesn't always work, like when they're trying to track her down and are quickly jumping to conclusions about things that the audience already knows. Scenes vary in quality, some feel a bit rushed. While the effects are mostly excellent there are some subpar ones, too.

Overall I highly recommend it if you can get something out of sci-fi horror.

"Species" has a hopelessly derivative premise that makes it a completely unnecessary view for anyone who has ever seen "Alien" or "The Predator" (or their sequels), but it does have some things going for it. To be short and specific: Natasha Henstridge is dreamily, extraordinarily beautiful; the rest of the cast is distinguished, with a very cool Michael Madsen stealing the show; the special effects are convincingly yucky; and the pacing is fast and unrelenting, with the "search-and-destroy" team being always only one step behind the pursued alien "monster". A forgettable film, but not nearly as bad as many reviews have suggested. (**)