Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Bessie Smyth Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Kat Webb A college professor has been raising an alien/human hybrid he created as his niece. She starts to turn alien and then the Professor must take her to Mexico to find an old colleague who can maybe save here life.From then on it's just boobs, sex, killer tongues, and more boobs with some pretty dull action scenes thrown in between. It didn't seem to have much of a story.Straight-to-video movies are never that good and this was no exception. The lighting was bad and it was primarily shot in Mexico I guess to save money. The action scenes were not exciting at all. I was really disappointed. Doubt I will ever watch this again.

Richard Hawes MGM's Species franchise, like Wishmaster and The Crow, is a perfect example of the law of diminishing returns. Roger Donaldson's 1995 hit Species was a stylish, self-consciously trashy homage to B-movies. One that has had its scenario rehashed three times now. One would expect a low-budget sequel to revel in sleaze and gore, but since 2004, when the concept was resurrected, 6 years after the cinema release of the disastrous Species 2 (1998), for the direct-to-DVD market, there has been a surprising resistance to the gratuitous ingredients of sex and violence. Species 3 paid little more than lip service to the desires of the target audience and the same is true here. Deviating from the plot line established by the first three films, which featured Natasha Henstridge, The Awakening is a standalone feature that references and reimagines the ideas of the first film. It posits an alternative scenario; what if the scientist played by Sir Ben Kingsley in the original had not kept the young girl like a rat in cage? What if he'd raised her like his own? This could have made for an intriguing exploration of nature versus nurture. Had Henstridge's Sil been allowed to develop in a more normal way could her dangerous, alien side have been suppressed? Alas there is little such depth to this cheap cash-in.Kingsley's role is reinterpreted by fellow British thespian Ben Cross, while Swede Helena Mattsson (who looks a bit like Nicole Kidman) takes over where Henstridge and Sunny Mabrey left off. With only four key cast members and no sign of even Michael Madsen, The Awakening is the weakest of exploitation films. Only the audience is being exploited. A studio like MGM isn't short of cash, so the explanation for the cheapness of this film is clear; they knew they can get away with it and turn an easy profit. Studios like The Asylum have their desperately limited resources to explain their crass and dissatisfactory efforts, but there's simply no excuse for a Species film to be as unspectacular as this.Feeling more like a cross between a vampire movie and a retelling of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein than a sexy sci-fi movie, Nick Lyon's film merely coasts on tenuous links to its predecessors. There are the HR Giger-inspired creature costumes and the promise of flesh is vaguely satisfied but there's not much effort or imagination. Were it not for a few gratuitous moments and aggressive curse words this could have been made for mainstream TV. Lyons does well to pay homage to the original film and its subtext but seems to have forgotten how tongue-in-cheek it all was. Species 4 should have taken things to a cartoonish extreme. Instead what could have been knowingly amusing is just po-faced and embarrassing. From Dominic Keating's terrible Aussie accent to the fact that the alien hybrids use their tongues as weapons, at one point they shoot icicle-like spears from their mouths in bullet-time, the experience is one of contradiction.The original Species really went for it. Utterly shameless titillation. The sequel went further, but in a misjudged, sleazy and misogynistic direction. Perhaps this is why the following two instalments have been so tame. The Awakening, as evidenced by its 15 rating, delivers the bare minimum that one could expect from a film with the Species title. Cautiously exploitative. Like its heroine, The Awakening is in denial, trying its best not to give in to its primitive instincts. There's the potential for a wild ride in its concept and its plot, but Lyons takes it so seriously that the only laughs come unintentionally. This is a film in which a back alley scientist creates sex-crazed human/alien hybrids that run around Mexico! One of them dresses as demonic nun and leaps between rooftops, lassoing potential prey with its tongue; this is potentially hilarious stuff! But it's stripped bare, like its heroine in the final act, devoid of emotion. This is a film of wasted opportunities.

Arden Walker They just totally ruined that amazing SIL design by H.R.Giger...I really expected that "Species" series could be at least as good as Alien series but the ruined it. After being disappointed by Species 3, I felt absolutely wreck with Species IV...I mean I am a big fan of 1st species, and the alien-creature in species IV was like a puppet rather than being realistic. SIL design and special effects were good for 1995 situations...But now for 2007 movie (I think its all about the budget I don't know) I didn't expect that...It was utterly, awful..I wish I could give "0"... If they gonna make any other 5th one and if its going to be like this one, please No..Its will be a waste of time...Remember the 1st one please...

Nick Damian It just didn't work.Alien nun? WTF? Alien taxi driver? And he tries to kill his passenger for what reason? They live in Mexico? Where where they the rest of the time? So why are they suddenly just killing people when Ben Cross and the Blonde chick come into town? Wasn't good...wasn't scary, wasn't science fiction...just wasn't workable.The writers could have come up with something more creative for the paycheck...and the locations could have been chosen better too.Basically, it all could have been better.Yeah...as far as sequels go...it should be written by the same people - especially if the script was big enough to have a sequel.