Species 3

I'm not saying the original 'Species' movie was a masterpiece. Anything revolving around an over-sexed alien running round trying to er 'reproduce' with as many men as possible is hardly going to be regarded as 'high art.' But, boy, was it hot fun back in the day. It had (somehow!) well-established actors among the cast and a creature designed by the same man who had come up with the look of the 'xenomorph' from the iconic 'Alien' franchise.

Then came the sequel. No, it wasn't as good as the original, but it was okay. If you had your sights set low enough you could still get some fun out of it. Now we come to 'part 3.' This one went straight to TV, not even deemed good enough for a mainstream theatrical release. And I can't say I'm surprised.

If you gauge how good a movie is by how much you want to check your mobile phone during its runtime, then you'll be scrolling through the social media site of your choice for just over ninety minutes. It really is just dull.

The original star of the first two movies (Natasha Henstridge) returns for the third chapter, but don't get too hopeful - her role is little more than a cameo and you could have probably got a similar looking actress to play the part and no one would have noticed. We have another rogue scientist trying to splice human and alien DNA and - guess what - it results in an attractive girl or two running round trying to keep her species alive - if you get what I mean.

Only this time the characters don't even come close to being likable and you won't really care about the fate of mankind if these people are the best we have to offer. Whereas before the alien effects looked genuinely creepy and if they could well have come from another world or dimension, now they're basically a man in a rubber suit jumping about the place while the camera tries to cut away quickly to disguise what they really are.

There's a bit of gore here and there, but it doesn't elevate the film at all. This is one film that could have once upon a time be considered part of a trash (but fun) B-movie franchise, yet has descended into just something that you probably shouldn't bother wasting your time with.

This movie takes up where "Species II" left off with the dead body of "Eve" (Natasha Henstridge) being taken in an ambulance after she was killed fighting the astronaut named "Patrick Ross" (Justin Lazard). Also in the ambulance is one of the offspring of Patrick Ross who managed to sneak in right before it drove off. What nobody realizes is that during their brief mating Eve became pregnant and gives birth to a baby girl which is a more genetically pure alien creature than any of the other aliens ever created. This includes Eve, Patrick and several of the other "half-breeds" conceived from Patrick and various human females. Not only that, but one of the ambulance drivers is not what he seems either. Instead he happens to be a college professor by the name of "Dr. Abbot" (Robert Knepper) who specializes in genetics and desperately wants the opportunity to breed even more alien creatures. Since he cannot do everything by himself he recruits a young, college graduate student named "Dean" (Robert Dunne) to help him. Unfortunately, what neither Dr. Abbot nor Dean realize is that the half-breeds aren't adapting very well to their new earthly environment and need the assistance of Dr. Abbot or the opportunity to mate with Eve's offspring now known simply as "Sara" (Sunny Mabrey). At any rate, rather than reveal any more of this movie I will just say that, besides lacking the obvious novelty of the first two films, it also didn't quite have the same action or intensity and as a result wasn't quite as good. However, it still wasn't too bad in my opinion and having two beautiful actresses like Amelia Cook (as the female creature named "Amelia") along with the aforementioned Sunny Mabrey certainly didn't hurt this movie in any way. Again though, this movie simply wasn't as good as the first two and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

All typical sci-fi B-movie elements make enough appearances in this third installment of 'Species'. It's got lots of creepy alien gore, gorgeous chicks who kick male ass, abundant nudity and the twitch of alien-human sexual tension. I risk to say that the story is actually better than the crap of Species II... interesting enough to keep the viewer in his seat till the end.

Otherwise as usual, acting is horrible, script likewise. They used some old footage of Natasha Henstridge as well. But the role of Sara could go to a more physically attractive actress than Sunny Mabrey... though it is my personal opinion.

'Species 3' is a low budget continuation of the 'Species' series, and is not that bad for its category. The story of inter-galactic breeding continues here, some DNA mumble-jumble is being added, and science-fiction fans find here some of their preferred stuff although this is not really best in breed. The real appeal of the series is in the inter-species lover-predator games which provide the pretext for a handsome quantity of nudity on screen, and from this point of view series 3 equals its predecessors. What is lost is the surprise effect of the first film, and the money to make better effects. The director is experienced in TV series and he does what he knows best here. However, what works on the small screen is not enough on the big screen. You cannot leave on big screen, even in a series characters development for the many other tens or hundreds of episodes. Acting is also TV quality. The plot has some logics, embarrassing moments are avoided, but overall it looks like this movie is just a last tentative to squeeze some money from the dying 'Species' brand. 4 out of 10 on my personal scale.

I have watched the first three one night in a row and it seems like this one the scriptwriters were seriously smoking something potent when they wrote the script to this.

You could argue it has somewhat logic to it all, and with the way the characters act, but the logic is like the sort of logic only the craziest bond villain would possibly have, or just Dr Evil logic.

For example the first moment of the movie has a college professor pretending to be an army officer just so he can steal the last surviving alien to take home to make a master pure alien race so he can win a Nobel prize? (I guess that said professor did not know that Nobel made the prize after inventing nitroglycerin, realising it was actually dangerous to mankind so created the Nobel prize specifically to reward scientists for making things that are good and a benefit for humankind) So how he thinks creating a pure race of alien that simply wants to destroy all human kind would win him this prize is way beyond me to understand?.

Now to get back above, why the army would also allow something so highly top secret and risky to be put in charge of and transported back to the base in the hands of someone who nobody didn't even know is beyond all rational logic to me too.

The only good thing about the movie in my opinion was the incredibly hot alien that comes out of nowhere in the final act just to be the final fight villain which obviously a film like this needed and clearly the filmmakers felt could not have been Sara as she was a very likable character so tacked on this other vicious Alien hot girl for solely that role.

Which by the way she came into the film by posting on the internet in the personals ads asking if anyone out there knows and can explain to her what alien DNA is, which our hero's roommate steals the info from his journal just so he can potentially get in on with the hot girl which surprisingly turns out to be a bad idea, you can tell I am not making this up as I doubt anyone could make this up bar the one writer of this movie.

Overall I felt it was an okay watch, the main alien girl was not a patch on Natasha Henstridge, but the incredibleness of the villain sort of made up for this. She should have been Sara though in my opinion as she was a better actor, had more edge to her and also was, in my opinion, much more attractive.

I will be watching 4 tomorrow.