So I went and spent hard earned money (actually not, it's part of a state grant and I worked for all of 30 minutes filling in the forms ... ;-) on Species last Friday. Bad mistake.
The film stars Ben Kingsley (Xavier Fitch) as a mad scientist working for some hush hush governmental agency. Twenty years ago, the SETI or Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence sent out a message. In 1993 they got a reply. The reply contained two items: First was a catalyst for methane giving humanity an unlimited energy source thereby showing the aliens' higher intelligence and benevolence (or so Fitch claims). Second was a DNA sequence. Fitch and his team accepts the brilliant idea of splicing human DNA with this stuff and seeing what happens.
Sil happens.
Sil is the name of the woman they create. Apart from being one seriously good looking female, she is also the most predatory thing on two legs. Bad combination. Fitch soon realizes that she is out of control and decides to kill her. She escapes. Fitch assembles a team of (supposedly) Really Baaad Good Guys and they set off to wreck the city and find Sil.
In short, this is a boring film. Nothing much happens, it is horribly predictable, and the only real points of interest are all the shots of Natasha Henstridge with a naked upper body (of which there are quite a few).
One interesting feature, though, is that Mr Giger is the (warped) mind behind the Sil creature. I cannot begin to think what this man's childhood was like, but Freud would probably have had a field day with this guy. In particular, Sil's combination of naivety, sexual desire and deadliness seems to be a point of fascination for Mr Giger. Personally I mostly find it rather distasteful, but I guess that that's just me.
The URL is <http://www.msstate.edu/M/title-exact?Species> for more detailed information. If you check this out, you'll see that Natasha Henstridge has apparently made a film in 1996, called Adrenaline. Also starring in this film is Christopher Lambert. I'd like to know what this is, but unfortunately, Mississippi State doesn't have much info on it. Oh well ...
Opening this Friday is Mortal Kombat. From a spot on Channel 4 (or was it MTV), if you've seen the trailer, you've apparently seen the best parts of the entire film. Certainly the trailer does look impressive, so I shall of course be wasting my money on this film too. If nothing else, I expect the combat scenes and effects to be good.
While on the subject of television, it's interesting to note how there are trends in advertising. The obvious ones are for the same products, such as the current trend in ads for car insurances here in England at the moment. But the more interesting ones are for ads for totally different products.
Currently, there seems to be a trend to use dolphins in advertizing. Two good examples of this are the Intel Pentium processor and Schweppes new drink (the name of which currently escapes me). Even more interesting is that both use the image of the dolphins in almost exactly the same manner. In the Pentium commercial, a mass of pixels order themselves into the shape of two dolphins, which then swim side by side. In the Schweppes commercial, opening a can of this new fizzy stuff produces a mass of bubbles which become dolphins. What next? Washing powder? Wouldn't be surprised - little goblets of washing powder become dolphins that lovingly wash away all the little patches on the brilliantly white clothing.
I still think that Dudley Moore had the right idea in Crazy People ...