Specie mortale

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.

Let's face it, SPECIES is a B movie with an A list cast & production design to match. It's a deceptive entertainment that finally shows it's hand during the boring, silly showdown in the sewer level from Quake II where you have to find the red key & beat the boss monster without the quad damage. I'd always drown before I could find the biosuit. Why this was never made into an adults oriented video game is beyond me, other than the obvious problem with marketing it to teenagers.

The whole SPECIES franchise was meant to cash in on the success of the ALIEN films, obviously, and go straight for the amniotic fluid in the reproductive cycle at the expense of logic, probability, and science. It's probably a better movie than it had to be and I'm sure that multiple viewings will bring out more nuances, though that's probably not the idea they had in mind when making it. Once will suffice for most viewers.

I enjoyed seeing Natasha Henstridge naked, however, and the H.R. Giger creature designs are fabulous as always. In fact I wondered, is the whole film really a contrivance just to get to see Giger's aliens mating with humans? Why yes, it probably is. And for some people that's enough to warrant watching it regardless of whom the lead body actress is. Giger's designs were sexually suggestive to begin with and with this movie he finally got to see them doing the nasty. I trust he was well paid.

In any event it's a wildly popular film for reasons that have nothing to do with the professionalism of the cast & crew. Which by the way someone should have told them before prodding us with their serious, emotive performances that serve as buffer zones between the sex & ooze scenes. Only Michael Madsen seems to be aware that it was essentially an exploitation film and acts accordingly. He's spoken of his pride in the work and it shows, especially when considering that he turned up for SPECIES 2 with it's bonus deathmatch levels and Capture The Flag mod.

6/10

Species is like a meeting between an amateur low budget film, and a big budget horror movie. On the one hand; the film has a great cast and is professionally produced, but on the other - the special effects wouldn't have looked out of place in an eighties film, and the plot concentrates mostly on its sleazy and often silly by-products. That being said, however, the movie is lots of fun; and overall I wouldn't hesitate to call it one of the best horror films of the nineties. The film takes obvious influence from a range of similar films, such as Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce and Jack Sholder's 'The Hidden', but it brings all of it's elements together well and somehow manages to feel fresh and inventive. The plot is pure hokum, but it works well; as alien-human crossover 'Sil' escapes from a testing lab with a team of professionals, comprising a psychic, an action hero, a woman etc, on her tail. Sil's ultimate goal is to reproduce, and to complete that aim she must find a man. So basically, what we have here is a sexy, horny, naked chick being chased around before she can have sex with someone. Sounds good to me...

I'm not quite sure how director Roger Donaldson managed it, but he's managed to get quite a few names to appear in his film; and most of them do well with their roles. Despite the fact that she probably isn't really, Natasha Henstridge looks clean and pure in the lead role; and this both ensures that she looks the part, and the film is great in that it carries off the juxtaposition of having a sweet-looking virginal woman act like a prostitute. Ben Kingsley is the biggest cast surprise, as the former Ghandi actor looks slightly out of place in a B-movie like this. Michael Madsen is absolutely great in his typecast action hero role and the cast is completed by a memorable performance from Alfred Molina, and a rather annoying one from Forest Whitaker. Marg Helgenberger fails to make much of an impression as Madsen's love interest. The two plots that run concurrently are played out well, and climax nicely. The special effects are key in a film like this, and even though they're cheap throughout - they do look fairly realistic. It's not until we get to the end and the director decides to spoil it with some abysmal CGI that the effects become a problem. But even so, Species takes its plot well and isn't too serious, and I've got to rate this as a really fun flick overall.

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.

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!