स्पीशीज़

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. (**)

Using information received from an extra-terrestrial radio transmission, scientists on earth are able to reconstruct alien DNA and then inject it into a human egg in accordance with the instructions from their source. The scientists are then shocked by the rapid rate of growth from the humanoid creature and fearing that they may have rushed too quickly into this experiment decide to destroy the young female before it can mature. Unfortunately, she escapes and within just a matter of days has attained full adulthood. It is at this point that the scientists realize that they have created a true monster with little concern about destroying anyone who gets in her way. They also discover that she wants to mate. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that Natasha Henstridge was perfectly cast as the beautiful but psychopathic creature named "Sil". I also liked the performance of Forest Whitaker (who played the empath by the name of "Dan Smithson") and Marg Helgenberger (as the micro-biologist named "Dr. Laura Baker"). In any case, I thought this was a pretty good Sci-Fi/Horror film and I have rated it accordingly. Above average.

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.

Admittedly you would either need to be 50 plus with a good memory, or to be a well-versed student of older sci-fi but in 1961 Miss Julie Christie made her screen debut in the British TV Sci-fi serial A FOR ANDROMEDA. The plot? Signals are received from deep-space seemingly the blue-print for the creation of human life. Scientists of course find the opportunity way too tempting and before you can say "Told you that was a dumb move!" we have a genetically engineered, rather stunning young blonde walking around the lab, causing all sorts of political and scientific unrest.....sound familiar?

Yep, SPECIES was a total conceptual rip-off and to my knowledge, either no-one has ever noticed the fact OR has failed to put such view into print. Certainly not a solitary film critic worldwide that I read at the time was aware of the fact! That said, SPECIES wasn't a total flopperoo although Ben Kingsley looked majorly uncomfortable, if not stunned for the greater part of the flick, as the head science honcho really wanting his creation (the delectable and statuesque Miss Henstridge) dead on sight....a task he bequeathes to Mr Madsen who always enjoys work of this sort!

Never really scales the heights. Neither a major gore-fest or a jaw-dropping ALIEN-wannabe. It labors on beneath its own mediocrity and when it finally finishes, about the only emotion left to the viewer is.."Hmmmmm, OK, now I've seen SPECIES....what's for dinner?" Compared to its sequel however, it remains a rare masterpiece!