Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

rzajac Pretty much B-movie territory... but like I said it has its moments of real class.As the adult S1L works out her destiny, there are times you feel like you're seeing the kinds of primitive psychological insights into an idealized character, such as you'd get from Philip K. Dick or Jerome Bixby. I found those flashes refreshing and exciting. I also sometimes found myself gripped by the central existential issue: That the fate of the human race rests on the outcome, no less than in the original "Alien".But, yes, these rather pristine story elements wind up a bit inundated by the succession of de rigeur horror flick alien/human encounters.And there is the fact that one of the most interesting plot points is a tech hubris of ginormous proportions (NO SPOILER: It's revealed in the first 10 minutes): WHO the HECK's Bright Idea was it to shotgun a DNA sequence radioed from outer space into a human egg?!?!?! Sheesh!!!So, with the proviso that it's pretty much a horror movie snack, it's worth watching for the aforementioned sterling conceptual stings, the general decent production values, the nicely turned dramatic tension over the outcome, and almost all of the acting. There are some letdowns, but I still consider this a not-half-bad "period" classic of the genre.

Leofwine_draca SPECIES is a B-movie with an A-list cast, nothing more and nothing less than that. Its tired, hackneyed plot is like something out of a '50s alien invasion flick, and the film as a whole is little more than excuse for lots of gratuitous nudity and some gruesome bloodshed along the way. One of the most notable things is that the alien is designed by H. R. Giger, the designer behind the most famous screen Alien of all time, and to hammer the similarities home we have an eerie soundtrack that seems to rip off ALIENS at every single opportunity. Sadly, the only time we really see Giger's work is at the climax, where it's represented by some shoddy CGI effects that I remember thinking were good back in the day. Now, watching this with hindsight, I see that they stink. If only we had more of the cool alien suit and less CGI, I might have enjoyed this a whole lot more.The storyline is so predictable that it's hardly worth bothering with. A female alien in human form attempts to mate with lots of guys, but usually ends up killing them instead. Of course, the good guys are always just behind, and don't meet up with her until the climax. Natasha Henstridge stars in her breakout role as Sil, the alien, but her appearance is little more than an excuse for lots and lots of topless nudity. She doesn't make an impact other than that, and neither does Michelle Williams playing the young Sil. More interesting are Michael Madsen, delivering an adequate hard-ass character with little material to go on, and Marg Helgenberger cast as a love interest before C.S.I. came along. Ben Kingsley is here too, but he just seems weird, while Alfred Molina is trying too hard as the oh-so-British professor. I did like Forest Whitaker, though, who brings warmth and depth to his role as an 'empath', somebody with a psychic link to Henstridge's killer.A predictable ending involving characters being stalked through the sewers and a ridiculous killer baby aside, this is for the most part routine fare. There's one outrageous gore scene where a woman has her spine ripped out in a toilet cubicle and one decent suspense scene in which a couple of the characters are trapped in a sealed room with a rapidly growing alien organism. Other than that, SPECIES is a film just not really worth bothering with.

Python Hyena Species (1995): Dir: Roger Donaldson / Cast: Natasha Henstridge, Ben Kingsley, Michael Madsen, Marg Helgenberger, Forest Whitaker: Laughable thriller lacking the intelligence and payoff of Alien. It features a breed of alien that dines on people and looks exactly like Natasha Henstridge. With that respect she ages rapidly until reaching the Henstridge stage. She escapes from a lab that was to abort her and she stalks about in search of eager males and breeding, which leads to a nasty sexual encounters that are deadlier than any sexually transmitted disease. Perhaps she should get a guest spot on The Dating Game to help her chances. Lousy recycled peep show reduced to formula and predictable stupidity. Directed by Roger Donaldson who previously made The Bounty, and whose best asset is the special effects. Henstridge spends most of the film having nasty sex and displaying a look on her face that indicates that her underwear might be jammed up her crack. File in as the morons who test death are Ben Kingsley, Michael Madsen, Forest Whitaker, and Marg Helgenberger whose roles are reduced too running and either dying or narrowly avoiding it. One thing is for sure, and that is they didn't narrowly avoid the casting call for this trash. Had the film analyzed the reproduction aspect it might have been more interesting, but instead it becomes an aimless parade of violence that results in an array of guck. Score: 2 / 10

classicsoncall When this first came out I had high hopes that it would be a sci-fi thriller along the lines of "Alien" or "Predator", but sadly, that was not to be. In fact, it's more comparable to a blend of soft porn and sci-fi gone astray, what with the inner Sil resembling an Alien knock-off in those mesmerizing dream sequences. I don't think we can blame it on the high power cast with Ben Kingsley, Michael Madsen, Forest Whittaker and Marg Helgenberger on hand. I think they needed more to work with.Now as far as Natasha Henstridge goes, think what might have happened to her movie career if she didn't debut with this effort. Not exactly a household name, even if you could pronounce it. The thing is, she's simply stunning in the film, and that's with her clothes on. Notice I mention nothing about her acting.It's almost inconceivable to me that there were a couple of sequels to this movie, though the ending obviously begged for it. I may get around to them at some point, with the same kind of urgency I attach to Japanese Godzilla flicks, beach movies and Seventies martial arts films. Which is to say, I can wait a while.