Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

Cortechba Overrated

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Leofwine_draca A tired, by-the-numbers sequel to a film which wasn't good enough to deserve a sequel in the first place. SPECIES II has a threadbare plot about aliens which has been recycled so many times that it's merely a continuation of the first film, offering up nothing new in the way of surprise or intrigue. Alien man mates with woman before turning into big scary alien creature. That's all there is to it.The actors aren't particularly bad but are served by an atrocious script which makes them all sound like idiots who are one step behind the events proceeding around them. Michael Madsen is his typical laconic self (as he is in all of the films he's been in) but is given virtually nothing to do but wave a gun around a bit. He just goes through the motions. The black lead is also on hand for comic value, and surprisingly he doesn't get killed at the end, which makes something of a change. Marg Helenberger is virtually unrecognisable and is also given little to do with her role. Natasha Henstridge, on the other hand, was never much of an actress in the first place and she only gets naked once, briefly, at the end, which is something of a let down for fans of the first film. Justin Lazar tries his hardest to look scary and scared in equal measures but he's nothing more than a bland, macho face picked more for looks than charm. I'm sure Peter Boyle turned up in a small role as a lunatic asylum patient but I could be wrong.So, all in all things are looking pretty bleak from this film but it does have two things to win it an audience. The first is the nudity. A number of actresses are willing to strip for the camera which seems almost as bad as the exploitation films of the '70s. The second factor is the special effects. The mission to Mars at the beginning has some great SFX, very similar to those in EVENT HORIZON. However, the gore and monsters are not so impressive. The gore is simply too computerised, as it was in WISHMASTER; it looks very fake and insubstantial. The monsters are all of the CGI-waving-tentacles variety and soon become tired and not very interesting. The only monster of interest is the big scary computer one at the end, which is pretty good, but it dies far too easily in what seems like a very rushed finale. And what was it about the ending in the ambulance which made no sense whatsoever? SPECIES II is run-of-the-mill stuff which passes the time but ends up ultimately disappointing every viewer, including fans of the original. As I expected really.

Uriah43 In the first movie, scientists managed to create an alien life-form by utilizing certain DNA-altering procedures sent from an extra-terrestrial radio source. The result was a half-human, half-alien monster that once released into the world had the capability to destroy all human life as we know it. Fortunately, an emergency team was assembled which destroyed the alien before it could propagate. However, apparently not content to let matters rest, the U.S. government decides to recreate that same alien life-form under what they consider to be even better security. Ironically, the top-secret project is headed by a scientist named "Dr. Laura Baker" (Marg Helgenberger) who just happens to have been one of the people who helped destroy the first alien a few years previously. At the same time, a manned space mission to Mars blasts off even though one of the scientists involved in the process warns of the possible existence of alien DNA there that might have been responsible for wiping out all basic life on the planet. Naturally, rather than heed his warnings, the U.S. government arrogantly confines him into a mental institution and proceeds full speed ahead. Sure enough, after landing on Mars two of the three astronauts become infected with the alien DNA and they are heading back to earth—where the alien life-form named "Eve" (Natasha Henstridge) waits in her secure lab facility. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that typically sequels are seldom as good as their predecessor and this particular film is no exception as there were some scenes which were simply too preposterous. Additionally, I didn't care for some of the special effects which included all of the scenes involving the alien offspring. However, the story itself was fairly interesting and the fact that both Natasha Henstridge and Marg Helgenberger were cast in this movie certainly helped this film as well. Admittedly, it's not a great movie by any means but viewers who liked the first movie might find this sequel somewhat enjoyable. Overall, I rate it as about average.

lois-lane33 I thought the first Species in 1995 was not so bad-derivative of Alien but since Giger had also designed the Species creature it would make sense that it was similar. The dialogue in the sequel is trashy in a number of places which I think downgrades the film distinctively as opposed to what it would have been had they paid more attention to making the dialogue more intelligent. Frequently very gory & bloody and also suffers from plot errors in that one of the members of the space team who was exposed to alien DNA isn't considered suspect along with the others even after the other crew members have become fully infected with the aliens DNA. Dumb scripting. Its weird in the sense that they seem to be aiming for a younger audience in this one but if they are aiming for a younger audience they only made the film more death & sex orientated & generally cruder-that is some kind of a warped take on what younger people respond to. I think this film damaged the career of Michael Madson who was pretty good in the original and made Natasha Henstridge a non entity in the film business also. It looked like the budget was fairly generous for the film but I doubt if they made it back in the box office. It's always a mistake to treat the audience as if they are morons whose idea of a good time is slurping beer through a beer hat. Not true science fiction so much-more like schlock cinema at its schlockiest.

AaronCapenBanner God-awful sequel is so bad it makes the original classy and inspired by comparison. Sequel has astronauts being infected on Mars by the same alien DNA that caused all the trouble the first time, and when they return home, go on a murderous reproductive spree to take over the Earth. Again, this has some returning cast members, all of whom deserve better than this excessively violent, sleazy, foul-mouthed and feeble-minded film.Hard to believe this farrago was directed by Peter Medak, who made the exceptionally fine ghost story "The Changeling"(1980) None of that class, intelligence and subtlety is on display here. At one point, a character screams "This isn't the (censored) "The X-Files"! No kidding, though guest star Peter Boyle did appear in one of that series' best episodes, so would know better than anybody else the gulf of quality between them!