From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Apr 20 16:18:39 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!fci-se!fci!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!howland.erols.net!wnfeed!204.127.130.5!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: Craig Roush Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Species II (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 18 Apr 1998 16:01:46 GMT Organization: None Lines: 64 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6haipa$hfs$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> Reply-To: kinnopio@execpc.com NNTP-Posting-Host: homer19.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892915306 17916 (None) 140.142.64.6 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12051 Keywords: author=roush X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer19.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11119 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1862 SPECIES II Release Date: April 10, 1998 Starring: Justin Lazard, Natasha Henstridge, Marg Helgenberger, Michael Madsen, Mykelti Williamson, James Cromwell Directed by: Peter Medak Distributed by: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer MPAA Rating: R (strong sexuality, sci-fi violence/gore, language) URL: http://www.execpc.com/~kinnopio/reviews/1998/species2.htm Hollywood is increasingly feeling the need to produce big-budget films that contain gratuitous sex and violence. The second such film in less than a month (after WILD THINGS), SPECIES II has given movie goers another reason to fear studio-produced films. In movies such as this, there is no such thing as depth, no one has an alterior motive, duplicity is unlikely, and dynamism is impossible. Every single element is laid out for the viewer to see, and anything approaching complexity is hammered home; everyone in the audience is forced to watch the movie on the level of the lowest common denominator. This might be expected from Director Peter Medak, who is a veteran director from the hit television series HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREETS. Confined to a span of forty-two minutes, it's no wonder a film that runs ninety-five minutes in length is hard for him to design. There's not much to expect from the screenwriting department, either, because the only other major feature that Chris Brancato has penned was 1997's Laurence Fishburne starrer, HOODLUM. So the only thing left to turn to is, in this order: sex, special effects, and violence. Justin Lazard plays Patrick Ross, an astronaut who is the first man to walk on Mars. After some melodramatic screentime, he becomes infected with alien DNA that renders him in a precarious condition: any woman he has sex with will grotesquely perish moments after intercourse. This becomes a problem for the increasingly sexually active Ross, who receives no help from his father (James Cromwell). Only Dr. Laura Baker (Marg Helgenberger) and a team of scientists, who've recreated a friendly version Sil (the female alien from the original SPECIES) - now named Eve - know how to stop him. So they call in Press Lenox (Michael Madsen, who reprises the role) to hunt down Ross. Unfortunately, there's a telekinetic bond between Eve and Ross, and their peaking levels of estrogen and testosterone, respectively, give them a strong desire to mate. The movie might actually have a chance of thrilling the audience if there wasn't so much gratuitous sex. The theme of the movie distracts the audience's attention from what's going on: rather thangetting scared by any of the several tense scenes, the focus is on how long it will be until somebody takes their clothes off. Thus there is no reason to comment on the acting, for nobody save Mykelti Williamson has any degree of emotion. Cromwell's decreased screen time means he can't lend the gravity here that he did in L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, and as the movie progresses towards the end, everything loses any degree of seriousness. This is another movie that's saved only by special effects and the merest murmurings of a plot; definitely missable by anyone's standards. FINAL AWARD FOR "SPECIES II": 1.5 stars - a below average movie. -- Craig Roush kinnopio@execpc.com -- Kinnopio's Movie Reviews http://www.execpc.com/~kinnopio From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Apr 20 16:19:28 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!fci-se!fci!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: Jamie Peck Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Species II (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 18 Apr 1998 16:01:56 GMT Organization: The Retriever Weekly Lines: 64 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6haipk$hft$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer19.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892915316 17917 (None) 140.142.64.2 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12052 Keywords: author=peck X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer19.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11120 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1863 SPECIES II Reviewed by Jamie Peck ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rating: ** (out of ****) MGM / 1:33 / 1998 / R Cast: Marg Helgenberger; Justin Lazard; Michael Madsen; Natasha Henstridge; Mykelti Williamson; George Dzundza; James Cromwell; Peter Boyle Director: Peter Medak Screenplay:Chris Brancato ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Species II" is a creaky creature feature that pretty much fails to build upon the furiously far-out premise of 1995's surprise summer hit "Species." Not that the original could never be surpassed or anything, but there was an arguably good time to be had watching Natasha Henstridge's evil female extraterrestrial peruse the L.A. nightclub scene looking for a suitable suitor. "Species" was fun in a brain-dead sort of way, but the same can't quite be said for its follow-up. "Species II" isn't so much an actual movie as a succession of violent scenes that eventually contrive a way for Henstridge, back for this go-around, to remove her top. At least the studio pitch meeting must've been a riot. The story, such as it is, casts Henstridge as a good guy, a docile clone of her "Species" character that helps out fellow original cast members Marg Helgenberger, as a brainy biologist, and Michael Madsen, a stoic hitman. They're pitted against a heroic astronaut (Justin Lazard) that returns from America's first Mars mission with a little something extra in the bloodstream. When the mood strikes him -- and the mood strikes him often, considering his alien urge to procreate -- he turns into a sex-crazed, slimy monster whose demon semen produce instant toddlers that cause his bedmates' bellies to graphically swell and pop right open post-coitus. So much for the afterglow, I guess. There's little imagination or creativity at work here, but those things aren't what "Species II"'s core audience will be looking for anyway; presumably, nobody's going to see this movie expecting anything more than gore, sex and special effects, so the character and story holes and lack of coherent plotting aren't really going to be enjoyment roadblocks. "Species II" is at least competently assembled, with slick production design, a few interesting moments and a couple of particularly puzzling celeb cameos (Richard Belzer as the president?). Take away the antagonist gender-reversal and this is essentially the very same movie as "Species." It even ends, not unlike its prequel, with the promise of another installment. Any takers? Recurring attempts to lend the film some emotional weight, as the antagonist is fully aware and occasionally horrified of the bloodshed he's causing, distract from the rest of the mostly campy proceedings, and even render certain scenes somewhat distasteful. Patches of "Species II" are genuinely, pleasantly goofy (particularly a scene where Lazard's brood demonstrates an inventive use for snot), but the film as a whole is highly inconsistent, and bouts of hilarity -- be they intentional or not -- don't justify a slight, needless sequel. The makers of "Species II" should have left the alien resurrections (and alien franchise resurrections) to Sigourney Weaver. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ © 1998 Jamie Peck E-mail: jpeck1@gl.umbc.edu Visit the Reel Deal Online: http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~jpeck1/ "Suggestions, please, for the fourth movie in the series. How about 'Look Who's Talking Back,' in which the audience gets its turn?" -- Roger Ebert on "Look Who's Talking Now" From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Apr 20 16:20:31 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!Cabal.CESspool!bofh.vszbr.cz!howland.erols.net!wnfeed!204.127.130.5!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: "Jerry Bosch" Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Species II (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 18 Apr 1998 16:08:47 GMT Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services Lines: 62 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6haj6f$hs7$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer35.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892915727 18311 (None) 140.142.64.4 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12055 Keywords: author=bosch X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer35.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11123 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1864 SPECIES 2 It was bound to happen. My son and I share a perverse predilection for bad movies. We are amused and entertained by the cheap thrills, the corny dialog, the ludicrous premises and the bad acting. Since other family members aspire to higher forms of entertainment, we usually wind up indulging our proclivity together. I can’t remember when we disagreed on the relative merits of a clunker until SPECIES 2 came along. He was not amused. I on the other hand was able to easily suspend the applicable requirements in the usual manner and declare myself suitably entertained. Perhaps the evident skills that were brought to the process of producing a bad product was what prevented him from extracting fun out of mediocrity. I on the other hand appreciated the fact that the producers and director knew exactly what they were doing: insulting my intelligence, and brought adequate movie-making skills to the project A movie does not have to be good to be well made, at least in terms of the craft. The movie could have been better if it were not so brusque. This movie slaps you with conception, pregnancy, delivery and young childhood in consecutive frames, without pausing for infancy. The producers of NESCAFE have nothing on this alien race in which a woman’s womb balloons immediately after the male orgasm, and a few seconds later a young child tears its way out of her abdomen in a sloppy and gory version of an inside-out Cesarean. An autopsy scene in which a buzz saw cuts through the cranium was not the kind of indulgence that I condone, to say nothing of the fact that it was scientifically incorrect. In a real autopsy the saw does not cut through the scalp; it is used only after the skull has been exposed. The opening sequences of exploration of Mars were very good. The writers showed excellent skills for ceremonial speech writing but the spontaneous dialogue would qualify for a subtitle: “As Bad As It Gets”. As the movie progressed I vowed to remember the lines that made me cringe but only one stuck. Eve (Natasha Henstridge) was cloned from Sil, the original alien sexual predator, but her mating instinct was artificially attenuated, which was all that was needed to turn her into a noble and cooperative prisoner. In a wistful display of resignation and understanding she tells her friend and jailer (Marg Helgenberger): “I think of all the places that I will never see and all the people that I will never meet.” It’s enough to melt the most callous heart. At another point she protests: “I’m human too, you know.” She is only half right. Peter Medak, the director, knows his business. Justin Lazard as the doomed astronaut does nothing to enhance his Hollywood credentials. James Cromwell, his father, is perfect in a short role. Marg Heldenberger, the DNA scientist is pleasant and beautiful. Natasha is an exquisite ornament. George Dzunza knew and delivered what was expected of him as the dumb general that messes things up. Michael Madsen was there. Black buddies do not usually survive in this type of movie but Mykelti Williamson manages to stay around for the final credits, which is more that we can say for Lazard.. I gave it 2 stars out of 5; my son gave it ½. Jerry From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Apr 20 16:21:12 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!masternews.telia.net!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!howland.erols.net!wnfeed!204.127.130.5!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: syegul@cablehouse.dyn.ml.org Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Species II (1998) [Revised and corrected] Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 18 Apr 1998 16:26:07 GMT Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion Lines: 58 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6hak6v$idm$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer28.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892916767 18870 (None) 140.142.64.2 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12065 Keywords: author=yegulalp X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer28.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11133 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1865 Species II (1998) -* (Minus-one stars) A movie review by Serdar Yegulalp Copyright 1998 by Serdar Yegulalp CAPSULE: MONEY TRAIN has been displaced; SPECIES II is the worst movie ever made by a major studio. You'll notice that there's a "minus" sign in front of my one-star rating of SPECIES II. This is deliberate: normally, the lowest I go for any movie is "no stars", meaning that I was not only unentertained, but offended as well. Minus-one stars, then, goes even lower than that. SPECIES II is the most offensive movie -- morally and aesthetically -- ever made by a big-name studio. Period. It's a sequel, I guess, to the dumb ALIEN ripoff of a few years back that had one twist: we got a sexy *female* alien, who transformed into a very unsexy puddle of chow mein when she got horny. This movie doesn't even have a new element to bring to the mix. It's a geek show. There is one scene in SPECIES II that is the core of my disgust with the film. It consists of two creatures that we have seen represented as humans, transformed into aliens. One of them -- the "male" -- attacks the "female" in a very specifically sexual way, raping her orally. It's impossible to interpret what happens as anything else. I am astonished that even an R-rated film could contain a revoltingly explicit depiction, however metaphorical, of oral rape -- and with no point to it except to give us trashy shock. But there it is. When the film isn't being disgusting, it's boring. Its plot, what little I could find of it, centers around astronauts returning from Mars infected with the same alien DNA that spawned the first movie's "Sil". One of them mutates, mates like mad, learns that there's a female alien on Earth somewhere, runs amuck. I am not leaving out much, nor am I trying to. The director of his garbage, incredibly, is Peter Medak. Medak is a good filmmaker, and you will never know that from watching this movie. Medak has directed LET HIM HAVE IT, ROMEO IS BLEEDING, and THE KRAYS, all of which were above-average movies about crime and violence. SPECIES II seems to have been done entirely on autopilot, which is a shame, because if he'd bothered to take the material into hand, he could have reworked it into something less purposelessly nauseating and vile. A friend brought up a comparison that's worth mentioning here. The Japanese animated sex-and-apocalypse epic LEGEND OF THE OVERFIEND is wall-to-wall with scenes like the one I described above, and worse. But it is nowhere nearly as hateful as SPECIES II is. As disgusting and repellent as LEGEND OF THE OVERFIEND was, it at least had a degree of internal consistency and ferocious energy. SPECIES II doesn't even classify as a beer movie (not unless you feel like cleaning beer-vomit off the couch). It isn't interesting, original, watchable, fearsome, thought-provoking *or* entertaining. It's an all-new cinematic low. Congratulations, guys. You're my new basement tenants. -----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==----- http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Apr 27 15:55:01 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!linkoping.trab.se!malmo.trab.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!fu-berlin.de!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: Matt Williams Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Species II (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 16 Apr 1998 23:36:53 GMT Organization: None Lines: 75 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6h64ml$q9e$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer05.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892769813 26926 (None) 140.142.64.7 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11984 Keywords: author=williams X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer05.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11194 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1872 SPECIES II A film review by Matt Williams RATING: 1/2* out of * * * * Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the movie theater, there, lurking in the corners, leaps out a stupefyingly horrid sequel to 1995's sci-fi misfire, Species. Those rascally scientists, not having learned their lesson from the first movie, have recreated Sil...now called Eve (Natasha Henstridge). Under the supervision of Dr. Laura Baker (Marg Helgenberger), this new Eve is calmer and more sedate, but is used as a lab rat to research weapons against future Species-alien attacks. That disaster scenario is coming true sooner than some have anticipated. The first manned mission to Mars is underway, with a crew including Justin Lazard and Mykelti Williamson. The Martian soil samples they retrieve contain more than dirt...they contain Species DNA samples. When the crew returns, all three may have been infected and are potentially hazardous to their mates. Luckily, NASA has established a 10-day sexual quarantine for interplanetary flights (no, really!). >From there, it all goes downhill (which, since it is one of the opening scenes, is no small trick). Soon, multiple alien sexual predators are on the loose again, each trying to mate to produce the "perfect" offspring. Now that's one thing that I just don't quite understand about this movie. Why would this creature, which now has the ability to assimilate people with merely a few strands of its DNA, need to bother with creating a "perfect" offspring. (Disregarding the fact that the offspring of two hybrids wouldn't necessarily be "pure"). One would think that the creature should just wander around the countryside bleeding. Its pools of blood are apparently sentient, and if they can't kill humanity...they should be able to merge with it in no time. But that would assume the movie was trying to make sense. No, this is the movie that has people thinking things like, "Hmm...a crawling pool of blood...I think I'll walk over and touch it..." The film touts its own stupidity and scientific ignorance as if it were a badge of honor (even though I don't think the film's even smart enough to know what a badge is.) No...the heart of Species and its sequel is: alien sex. Rather than present us with the ultimate femme fatale, as in the original, the sequel instead delivers a series of literally explosive pregnancies. (A strange thing though: all the resulting offspring mysteriously acquire identical grey shirts as their only form of clothing. Maybe it's another mutation...but then, I'm thinking again. Bad reviewer! Bad reviewer!). The film is chock full of nudity (both human and alien), sex and gore. Heck, if that turns you on...more power to ya. But don't go in expecting any great sci-fi action scenes. (Or even tepid ones like the original). No, the brainless attitude of the film destroys any sense of suspense even quicker than your credulity evaporates. One thing we can, unfortunately, expect is yet another sequel. Like most horror films, this one leaves the door wide open. In fact, it fails to resolve a central point to do so. Gone are the days of the faint rasp of facehuggers crawling after the credits in Aliens...these days the filmmakers don't care about subtlety, or even resolving the plot... At least they didn't stoop as low as the mutant rat in the first film (a thread which, thankfully, is never followed upon). As Marg Helgenberger utters after witnessing a spectacularly gory corpse: "This is awful...just awful." I couldn't have said it better. Copyright 1998 Matt Williams - Matt Williams (matt@cinematter.com) Reviewer for Cinematter: http://www.cinematter.com Home of over 500 reviews, and information on over 600 upcoming releases From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Apr 27 15:56:09 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!Cabal.CESspool!bofh.vszbr.cz!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: syegul@cablehouse.dyn.ml.org (Serdar Yegulalp) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Species II (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 17 Apr 1998 00:01:05 GMT Organization: Yo' Mama! Lines: 57 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6h6641$rkv$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer04.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892771265 28319 (None) 140.142.64.6 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12003 Keywords: author=yegulalp X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer04.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11157 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1868 Species II (1998) -* (Minus-one stars) A movie review by Serdar Yegulalp Copyright 1998 by Serdar Yegulalp CAPSULE: MONEY TRAIN has been displaced; SPECIES II is the worst movie ever made by a major studio. You'll notice that there's a "minus" sign in front of my one-star rating of SPECIES II. This is deliberate: normally, the lowest I go for any movie is "no stars", meaning that I was not only unentertained, but offended as well. Minus-one stars, then, goes even lower than that. SPECIES II is the most offensive movie -- morally and aesthetically -- ever made by a big-name studio. Period. It's a sequel, I guess, to the dumb ALIEN ripoff of a few years back that had one twist: we got a sexy *female* alien, who transformed into a very unsexy puddle of chow mein when she got horny. This movie doesn't even have a new element to bring to the mix. It's a geek show. There is one scene in SPECIES II that is the core of my disgust with the film. It consists of two creatures that we have seen represented as humans, transformed into aliens. One of them -- the "male" -- attacks the "female" in a very specifically sexual way, raping her orally. It's impossible to interpret what happens as anything else. I am astonished that a PG-13 rated film could contain a revoltingly explicit depiction, however metaphorical, of oral rape -- and with no point to it except to give us trashy shock. But there it is. When the film isn't being disgusting, it's boring. Its plot, what little I could find of it, centers around astronauts returning from Mars infected with the same alien DNA that spawned the first movie's "Sil". One of them mutates, mates like mad, learns that there's a female alien on Earth somewhere, runs amuck. I am not leaving out much, nor am I trying to. The director of his garbage, incredibly, is Peter Medak. Medak is a good filmmaker, and you will never know that from watching this movie. Medak has directed LET HIM HAVE IT, ROMEO IS BLEEDING, and THE KRAYS, all of which were above-average movies about crime and violence. SPECIES II seems to have been done entirely on autopilot, which is a shame, because if he'd bothered to take the material into hand, he could have reworked it into something less purposelessly nauseating and vile. A friend brought up a comparison that's worth mentioning here. The Japanese animated sex-and-apocalypse epic LEGEND OF THE OVERFIEND is wall-to-wall with scenes like the one I described above, and worse. But it is nowhere nearly as hateful as SPECIES II is. As disgusting and repellent as LEGEND OF THE OVERFIEND was, it at least had a degree of internal consistency and ferocious energy. SPECIES II doesn't even classify as a beer movie (not unless you feel like cleaning beer-vomit off the couch). It isn't interesting, original, watchable, thought-provoking *or* entertaining. It's an all-new cinematic low. Congratulations, guys. You're my new basement tenants. -----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==----- http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Apr 27 15:56:19 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!fu-berlin.de!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: Michael Dequina Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Species II (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 18 Apr 1998 16:01:30 GMT Organization: None Lines: 102 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6haioq$hfn$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer19.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892915290 17911 (None) 140.142.64.5 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12048 Keywords: author=dequina X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer19.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11217 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1876 Species II (R) * (out of ****) Despite its exceedingly well-done visual effects, 1995's original Species was one big hunk of sci-fi cheese, from the writing to the feeble performances. So, coming from such B-grade roots, its sequel's stunning ineptitude is not terribly surprising, yet at the same time it is. It would not have been difficult at all for the people behind Species II to top the hokey original, yet they have somehow managed to fabricate something just as bad, if not even worse. Something is clearly amiss when the back door left open for a sequel in Species--a sewer rat becomes not quite of this Earth after eating a body part from the exploded alien/human hybrid Sil--is never entered into (perhaps that was left for Species III--though I'm not giving away anything when I say that this installment has an open back door of its own). The alien fun and games begin this time when a three-person astronaut crew returning from Mars inadvertently carries within their soil samples deadly alien DNA that eventually infects the mission captain, Patrick Ross (Justin Lazard, late of CBS's short-lived soap of a few years back, Central Park West/CPW). This alien DNA is not identical to that which created the original film's Sil, but it's close enough, and upon arrival on Earth Patrick is mating like crazy, engaging in bloody sex with just about every woman he can find. Meanwhile, scientist Dr. Laura Baker (the returning Marg Helgenberger) has created a clone of Sil named Eve (Natasha Henstridge again) for research purposes. It doesn't take long for Eve to sense another alien presence, which send her libido into hyperdrive. It's up to Laura and her former partner, bounty hunter Press Lennox (Michael Madsen, another returnee); and Patrick's uninfected shipmate Dennis Gamble (Mykelti Williamson) to find Patrick before the in-heat Eve does. "This isn't The X-Files, goddammit!" exclaims one character in the early going. In terms of quality, he's absolutely right, but he's also wrong. The new alien first appears as an otherworldly oozing sludge that causes Patrick's pupils to dilate once he's infected. Looks and sounds an awful lot like The X-Files's "black cancer" to me. But that's not the only source director Peter Medak and writer Chris Brancato steal from. Species was already a ripoff of Alien, but Medak makes the cribbing much more blatant than the original's director, Roger Donaldson, did. Human Patrick is given a tongue that also has a tongue within itself, and his alien form more closely resembles the Alien than Eve's alien body (which ironically was designed by Alien designer H.R. Giger). A large alien hive that our heros douse with a substance fired from large guns? Aliens sans flamethrowers. The visual effects were by far the best thing about Species, and the sequel's effects crew at Steve Johnson's XFX Inc. keeps that high-quality tradition alive; no cheap-looking Lost in Space CGI here. After the effects, the original's best asset was the fresh presence of Henstridge. However, Medak and Brancato have no idea what exactly to do with her for this installment. At one point she's called on to play alien "empath" à la Forest Whitaker in the original, but for most of the duration she's holed up in a glass cell. By the time the big breakout so prominently featured in the trailer actually takes place, the film is well into its home stretch. So the rest of the time we are treated to Patrick, played with little zest by Lazard. One problem with the first film was that the deadly, horny, but innocent-at-heart Sil was too sympathetic; no such problem with Patrick, who comes off as a cocky pretty boy before the alien takes control. The rest of the cast also fails to add much, but the writing can be faulted for that. Helgenberger and Madsen go through the motions, but they are already hampered by the clichéd development that somewhere between the two films, the once-linked Laura and Press stopped getting along. Williamson suffers the worst indignity. He tries his best to enliven the token African-American role, but how can anyone recite insulting, derivative lines such as "I'm gonna get African on someone's ass" and not appear ridiculous? But Species II's worst crime is being a thoroughly uninteresting piece of work. At least the original featured plenty to laugh at--unaccountably awful performances by the otherwise fine actors Ben Kingsley and Whitaker, and the sight of Helgenberger's character performing fellatio on Madsen's, for a start. But the filmmakers do not display any discernable effort at all, let alone the misguided effort that is required for something to reach the camp level. For all the blood and gore, nudity, and sex thrown in, Species II is, quite simply, a vapid bore. __________________________________________________________ Michael Dequina Chat Forum Host, The Official Michael Jordan Web Site http://jordan.sportsline.com mj23@michaeljordanfan.com michael_jordan@geocities.com | mrbrown@ucla.edu >My personal WWW sites< Mr. Brown's Movie Site: http://welcome.to/mrbrown Michael Jordan Beyond the Court: http://fly.to/michaeljordan A Michael Jordan Fan's Heartbreak: http://fly.to/mj23 Personal Page: http://welcome.to/w3md >Other WWW sites I work on< CompuServe Hollywood Hotline: http://www.HollywoodHotline.com Albany Online: http://www.AlbanyOnline.com Eyepiece Network: http://www.eyepiece.com "I didn't know what to expect. It's like something you chase for so long, but then you don't know how to react when you get it. I still don't know how to react." --Michael Jordan, on winning his first NBA championship in 1991 ...or, my thoughts after meeting him on November 21, 1997 __________________________________________________________ From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Apr 27 15:56:32 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!fu-berlin.de!howland.erols.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: "David N. Butterworth" Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Species II (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 26 Apr 1998 17:44:31 GMT Organization: None Lines: 72 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6hvrpv$8hj$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer36.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 893612671 8755 (None) 140.142.64.2 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12165 Keywords: author=butterworth X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer36.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11252 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1880 SPECIES II A film review by David N. Butterworth Copyright 1998 David N. Butterworth no stars (out of ****) You don't need to have seen the original "Species" to appreciate how utterly lousy "Species II" is. With few exceptions, sequels tend to be worse than the films that spawned them, but the fact that "Species II" is a follow-up isn't the only reason it's so miserable. It's the predictable storyline, the cardboard characters, the banal dialogue, the failed attempts at humor, the revolting special effects, the gratuitous nudity (all female, of course), the bad acting, and the bland direction. The plot, simply geared at getting the alien species back on planet earth so that it can reak some more havoc, involves three astronauts landing on Mars and inadvertently bringing some alien slime in a soil sample back aboard their shuttle. The slime, well, sort of jumps out at them and the screen turns black. That should have been the end of the movie right there. Back on terra firma, at least one of the crew is now a carrier of alien DNA and, as you'll remember if you saw the first movie, driven by a strong urge to procreate. On a parallel track, government scientists have cloned a version of Sil from the first film (now called Eve, again "played" by Natasha Henstridge) and are keeping her around for some testing. This, apparently, includes observing Eve's reaction to "The Dukes of Hazzard" tv show, which she appears to enjoy. Eve's bio-rhythms go off the scale each time one of her kinfolk "mates," which we are forced to witness in gross-out detail, but otherwise there doesn't appear to be a whole lot of reason why Henstridge is in this film, unless it was written into her contract (let's hope it cited one sequel and one sequel only). Eve finally breaks free of her confines--and her bra--for the finale, but the effects are so messy you can't really see what's going on. Peter Boyle is totally wasted as an institutionalized scientist who screams "I told 'em not to go!" at the top of his lungs, referring to the Mars mission but more likely aimed at the makers of this piffle. Michael Madsen reprises his role of Press Lennox (so that he can enter high security areas, flash a badge and claim to be Press, maybe?), as does Marg Helgenberger as Dr. Laura Baker, the one subjecting Eve to the tv reruns. They're both unbelievably wooden. What's a talented filmmaker like Peter Medak ("The Ruling Class," "The Krays," "Let Him Have It") doing directing this tripe, I wonder. It's an unfortunate trend, this: once-talented directors throwing in the towel and lending their names to unchallenging horror flicks like "Species II." Last year Peter Hyams gave us "The Relic"; no thanks necessary there. And the first "Species" was helmed by Roger Donaldson who, although certainly no genius behind the camera, had demonstrated much better judgment with his previous choice of projects. Is it just that there are no better offers out there? "Species II" is worthless. Worse than that, it's also exploitative, offensive, and insulting to the intelligence at every turn. It's not that there isn't anything positive to say about the film. There is. After 92 minutes, it ends. -- David N. Butterworth dnb@mail.med.upenn.edu From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Apr 28 13:46:11 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!news-stkh.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: me@alanine.ram.org (Ram Samudrala) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Species II (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 26 Apr 1998 18:18:58 GMT Organization: Movie ram-blings: http://www.ram.org/ramblings/movies.html Lines: 45 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6hvtqi$9sv$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer22.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 893614738 10143 (None) 140.142.64.5 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12192 Keywords: author=samudrala X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer22.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11292 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1884 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SPECIES II A film review by Ram Samudrala ---------------------------------------------------------------------- "This is awful... this is just so awful" is a line uttered by one of the characters in /Species II/. I bet at that point, a lot of audience members felt the same way about the movie. /Species/ was a B-movie with some decent special effects. /Species II/ is also a B-movie with some decent special effects. Anyone who expects more is in for a huge disappointment. The plot is an extension of the original film: Patrick Ross (Justine Lazzard) has just returned from Mars, and is given a hero's welcome for being the first human on the red planet. Within him is the alien life form we first encountered in /Species/, which takes control of Ross and immediately begins wreaking havoc in its fundamental desire to procreate. Eve (Natasha Henstridge) is a clone of Sil, the original alien-human hybrid in /Species/, raised in captivity, who gets excited every time Ross goes about spreading his genes. Press Lennox (Michael Madsen) is once again called in to control the situation, but not before Eve escapes and mates with Ross. There is one positive aspect about /Species II/: it has a couple of genuinely disturbing moments. I'm a big fan of horror movies, and few things really manage to offend me (and I welcome the times when they do). /Species II/ manages this, perhaps unintentionally, by depicting the alien Ross as a being without a shred of mercy---there is no ambiguity in this character. More importantly, the /explicit/ depiction of intercourse (more like rape), and the births of the aliens who bursts out from the mother's womb in a vicious manner, is what works in this movie. The plot in /Species II/ could've been developed more, the dialogue could've been less hokey, and the acting could've been better, but I suspect a large portion of the movie's budget went into the effects, which are realistic enough to pull off the "in your face" scenes. If /Species II/ does even marginally well at the box office, expect another sequel. I recommend this one, but only if you get to see it the big screen (the breasts appear bigger). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- email@urls || http://www.ram.org || http://www.twisted-helices.com/th Movie ram-blings: http://www.ram.org/ramblings/movies.html From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon May 4 15:03:56 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!linkoping.trab.se!malmo.trab.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!news-stkh.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: me@alanine.ram.org (Ram Samudrala) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Species II (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 26 Apr 1998 18:18:58 GMT Organization: Movie ram-blings: http://www.ram.org/ramblings/movies.html Lines: 45 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6hvtqi$9sv$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer22.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 893614738 10143 (None) 140.142.64.5 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12192 Keywords: author=samudrala X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer22.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11446 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1887 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SPECIES II A film review by Ram Samudrala ---------------------------------------------------------------------- "This is awful... this is just so awful" is a line uttered by one of the characters in /Species II/. I bet at that point, a lot of audience members felt the same way about the movie. /Species/ was a B-movie with some decent special effects. /Species II/ is also a B-movie with some decent special effects. Anyone who expects more is in for a huge disappointment. The plot is an extension of the original film: Patrick Ross (Justine Lazzard) has just returned from Mars, and is given a hero's welcome for being the first human on the red planet. Within him is the alien life form we first encountered in /Species/, which takes control of Ross and immediately begins wreaking havoc in its fundamental desire to procreate. Eve (Natasha Henstridge) is a clone of Sil, the original alien-human hybrid in /Species/, raised in captivity, who gets excited every time Ross goes about spreading his genes. Press Lennox (Michael Madsen) is once again called in to control the situation, but not before Eve escapes and mates with Ross. There is one positive aspect about /Species II/: it has a couple of genuinely disturbing moments. I'm a big fan of horror movies, and few things really manage to offend me (and I welcome the times when they do). /Species II/ manages this, perhaps unintentionally, by depicting the alien Ross as a being without a shred of mercy---there is no ambiguity in this character. More importantly, the /explicit/ depiction of intercourse (more like rape), and the births of the aliens who bursts out from the mother's womb in a vicious manner, is what works in this movie. The plot in /Species II/ could've been developed more, the dialogue could've been less hokey, and the acting could've been better, but I suspect a large portion of the movie's budget went into the effects, which are realistic enough to pull off the "in your face" scenes. If /Species II/ does even marginally well at the box office, expect another sequel. I recommend this one, but only if you get to see it the big screen (the breasts appear bigger). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- email@urls || http://www.ram.org || http://www.twisted-helices.com/th Movie ram-blings: http://www.ram.org/ramblings/movies.html From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon May 4 15:04:02 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!masternews.telia.net!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!europa.clark.net!204.127.161.1!wnfeed!204.127.130.5!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: aw220@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Alex Fung) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Species II (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 1 May 1998 04:57:22 GMT Organization: The National Capital FreeNet Lines: 129 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6ibkni$a79$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> Reply-To: aw220@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Alex Fung) NNTP-Posting-Host: homer37.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 893998642 10473 (None) 140.142.64.4 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12253 Keywords: author=fung X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer37.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11370 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1885 SPECIES II (MGM - 1998) Starring Michael Madsen, Natasha Henstridge, Marg Helgenberger, Mykelti Williamson, George Dzundza, James Cromwell and Justin Lazard Screenplay by Chris Brancato Produced by Frank Mancuso Jr. Directed by Peter Medak Running time: 95 minutes *1/2 (out of four stars) Alternate Rating: D+ Note: Some may consider portions of the following text to be spoilers. Be forewarned. ------------------------------------------------------------- I was incredulous when I first heard that MGM was planning a sequel to their 1995 science-fiction flick SPECIES. Squandering an intriguing premise, the original film turned out to be a dreadful mess, widely disliked by both audiences and critics alike -- and nonetheless still somehow succeeded in becoming a financial success, raking in over $60 million domestic during the competitive summer season despite a distinct lack of star power in its cast (Ben Kingsley's a splendid actor, but a marquee name he ain't). Miraculously dodging the bullet with the first film, I doubted that they'd dare tempt fate and go for another round. So here comes SPECIES II, with a new creative team (director Peter Medak and screenwriter Chris Brancato step in for Roger Donaldson and Dennis Feldman, respectively) that fails to improve the series one iota -- like its predecessor, SPECIES II fails to capitalize on a potentially promising kernel and instead runs the gamut from ridiculously silly to unmitigatedly stupid. The film follows the exploits of a young man, Patrick Ross (Justin Lazard), whose sole focus is on cruising along the streets in order to pick up women, loitering in strip clubs, and generally trying to bed as many different ladies as he possibly can. In other words, Patrick is like a lot of guys; these activities could describe the everyday routines of a huge percentage of men his age, but there's a catch -- he's an astronaut who recently returned from a seemingly successful mission to Mars, and who's now infected with alien DNA. Patrick's overriding compulsion: to mate and sire countless numbers of gooey little alien offspring. And when he becomes aware of Eve (Natasha Henstridge), a half-human, half-alien clone of the monster from the first film being studied in a government lab, Patrick's primary focus turns to her -- "if these two were to mate, the resulting pure strain of offspring would be unstoppable" warns Dr. Laura Baker (Marg Helgenberger, gamely reprising her role) with admirable conviction. SPECIES II opens with the Mars mission, and the space scenes are remarkably unconvincing and hokey-looking, even splicing back to dated, grainy footage of actual spacecraft activities -- they really skimped on production values this time around. However, this all looks positively inspired when compared to the first appearance of the evil alien goo which ultimately infests Patrick; watching as it slinks around the command module of the spaceship, any question as to whether or not this is a cheesy B-movie is quickly answered. Mr. Brancato's original screenplay is filled with outrageous lines which often leaves the audience in stitches. Like the first film (and perhaps in homage to it), there's a real penchant for dialogue which underlines the obvious. Last time around featured the hootworthy line uttered by Forest Whitaker's psychic empath character upon entering a bloodsoaked room -- "Something bad happened here." This time, Laura gets to stand over a fresh, shredded corpse with its entails ripped out and mutter "This is awful." And she's not even empathic! And when a psychotically horny Patrick accosts a supermarket shopper and drags her kicking and screaming behind the building in a woefully-paced suspense sequence, Eve, who's telepathically linked to her alien/human-hybrid counterpart (whatever), helpfully tells our alien-hunting protagonists, "He's going to rape her." While SPECIES II is often unintentionally hilarious, at least it occasionally demonstrates a sense of humour of its own. There's an amusing, tongue-in-cheek bit of product placement (which doesn't really make much sense, but I appreciated the sentiment), as well as some supermarket-related hijinx ("He's in Aisle 1!" informs Eve). If the film maintained this sort of light-hearted tone, it would have been much more charming and enjoyable to watch, but, to its detriment, it instead takes its silly plot far too seriously and barrels along to a bloody, effects-ladened anticlimactic conclusion. Much of the film fails to make a whole lot of sense, and there are such gaping plot holes that it's terribly difficult to contain any suspension of disbelief. The implausibilities are endless: what about the toxic bomb in Eve's brain? Why are the guards armed with guns when they already know firearms are ineffectual? My favourite was the slow-motion sequence in the film where Eve, sporting superhuman strength, is shown tossing aside guards who are attempting to contain her with what look like body blocks. This is the sort of movie which leaves you holding your head in amazed disbelief, incredulous that it's being foisted upon the public. Returning headlines Michael Madsen (who reprises tough guy Press Lennox) and Ms. Helgenberger do what they can with this goofy screenplay, but there's realistically only so much one can do with this script as a basis. Mykelti Williamson (portraying astronaut Dennis Gamble) churns out an all-too-familiar spin on a generic brash-mouthed character, and fine character actors George Dzundza (playing Colonel Burgess and looking ridiculous in the process) and James Cromwell (Patrick's neglectful father, Senator Ross) are utterly wasted in the film. Mr. Lazard gives his character an appropriately shifty-eyed look, while returning vixen Ms. Henstridge is actually given the opportunity to act in one scene (and acquits herself nicely), but is mostly relegated to reprising her familiar role of parading about in skimpy clothing (or none at all). Ms. Henstridge recently commented on how some female audiences have expressed appreciation for her character in the first entry of the SPECIES series, claiming that "she's so empowered." A lethal half-alien in heat who dispatches of her sexual partners in grotesque fashion -- now *that's* what I call empowerment. - Alex Fung email: aw220@freenet.carleton.ca web : http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~aw220/ -- Alex Fung (aw220@freenet.carleton.ca) | http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~aw220/ "Sometimes, I have an overwhelming temptation to grab someone by the throat, head-butt them, leave them bleeding in the corner, saying 'That is my critical response to you.'" - NSFC award-winning director Mike Figgis From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri May 8 13:08:53 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!feed2.news.erols.com!erols!wn4feed!135.173.83.24!wn3feed!worldnet.att.net!140.142.64.3!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: Justin Felix Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Species II (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 8 May 1998 05:29:43 GMT Organization: None Lines: 151 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6iu587$1lu$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer10.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 894605383 1726 (None) 140.142.64.5 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12373 Keywords: author=felix X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer10.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11518 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1897 SPECIES II (1998) A "Turkey of the Week" film review by Justin Felix. Copyright 1998 Justin Felix. Rating: **** (out of five) Written by Chris Brancato. Directed by Peter Medak. Starring Michael Madsen, Natasha Henstridge, Marg Helgenberger. Rated R (contains nudity, violence, and profanity) 92 mins. Synopsis: A popular astronaut journeys to Mars on a corporate-sponsored space flight, picks up alien DNA, returns to Earth to have his picture printed on "Space Flakes" cereal boxes, and mutates into a horny alien predator. Meanwhile, Eve, a genetic clone of Sil from the first SPECIES, gains a psychic connection to the astronaut and fights her "urge to merge" with him. Press Lennox and Laura Baker (survivors of SPECIES), along with a machete-wielding astronaut and a one-eyed colonel, try to stop the growing alien menace. Comments: Sometimes I really enjoy "Wednesday Dollar Nights" at the local theater down the street from where I live. This theater shows second-run movies, and the cheap admission price is their way of increasing ticket sales during the sluggish middle of the week. Every now and then, a thoroughly awful turkey will play there, and the audience gladly ridicules it as if they were part of a massive "Mystery Science Theater 3000" episode. In recent years, Kent audiences, including myself, have paid a buck each to bash WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE and ANACONDA. These experiences, however, did not prepare me for the laugh riot SPECIES II engendered last Wednesday as one of the evening's dollar features. As a side note, allow me to be one of the few brave enough to admit that he's seen SPECIES II more than once. I saw it for the first time on the Friday it came out (April 10, 1998). The original SPECIES still stands as one of the best sci-fi misfires of the decade, and the sequel promised to be just as awful. Critics came down fairly hard on SPECIES II, with good reason. The movie is terrible; it's a poorly-acted, exploitative film with a heavy-handed, ludicrous plot full of continuity holes. SPECIES II, however, makes no claim to be good. The movie poster prominently displays star Natasha Henstridge in a silly uniform in front of a sillier backdrop of stars with the slogan "Mating Season Begins" underneath. People who spent more than a dollar for this film should have known what they were in for and expected the worse. This Friday showing I saw with my brother had a small audience who seemed to genuinely appreciate, and laugh at, the cheese projected on the screen. I did not write this review, by the way, as a critic who expects an Academy-Award-winning tour de force from a film like this. Instead, the four stars I award this turkey are deserved on the merits of having a fun time with a bad sci-fi / horror film. (I did deduct a star for an inexcusable scene I'll discuss later.) SPECIES II, like its predecessor, reminds me of the 1940s-1950s Universal and AIP monster movies that were a staple of my Saturday afternoons growing up. Very few films these days capture the magic of that by-gone era of Bug-Eyed Monsters, army generals, and scientists' daughters like the two SPECIES films do. Returning now to the Kent Cinema last Wednesday, which would have been April 29, 1998 (obviously, it didn't take long for SPECIES II to leave first-run theaters), I convinced a couple friends to go see it with me. Knowing them fairly well, I expected they would find the film a humorous romp too. The packed audience, however, surprised me with their continuous berating of the movie. I haven't been part of a movie crowd who had this much fun at a bad movie in quite some time (although I did hear one guy behind me ask his neighbor "is this supposed to be funny?" early on in the film). It was like a spontaneous, impromptu showing of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW without fans dressed up in costume. They laughed with good reason too. The opening scene involves a slow-moving space shuttle with corporate logos painted on the end of it like tacky bumper stickers, bringing allusions to Mel Brooks's SPACEBALLS' opening sequence from the crowd. People got a real hoot out of the "Space Flakes" cereal boxes predominant in a supermarket scene, and an over-the-top colonel with one eye drew pirate-like "Arrrrr"s in every scene he appeared in. The convoluted storyline, briefly outlined in my synopsis above, is laughable from start to finish. Filled with technobabble and inconsistencies, SPECIES II almost seems to challenge its viewers to identify all of its errors. Eve (who, in the first place, thought it'd be a great idea to clone Sil from the first SPECIES, after all the death and destruction she caused?) remains in a chamber isolated from men (in order to keep her docile) -- even though she's allowed to watch baseball and "The Dukes of Hazzard," and men constantly walk around outside the chamber. Eve has a device implanted in her head that's supposed to kill her if she leaves her cell -- when she does escape, she has no problem, apparently, with this device. The list could go on and on. If the plot is considered bad, then the dialogue's worse. A discussion of SPECIES II's dialogue, though, could not be complete without combining it with a discussion of its actors. Natasha Henstridge, as in the first SPECIES, does not have many lines here. An attractive supermodel, she's basically around to strut around in various states of undress. Also returning for a second go-round are Michael Madsen and Marg Helgenberger. Madsen, as government agent Press Lennox, really makes these SPECIES movies work. He constantly looks dissipated and elicits laughter from the audience in nearly every scene he's in (he's really that bad in this role). Madsen is quickly becoming the John Agar of the 1990s. His best line, the one which people laughed at the hardest during both showings I attended, was a poorly-delivered warning about the alien menace: "they'll f--k humanity out of existence!" Poor Marg Helgenberger, returning as scientist Laura Baker (Lennox's unlikely love interest) does not fare much better. When Eve becomes a disgusting, nine-foot, alien creature (designed by ALIEN's H.R. Giger) in a ridiculously over-the-top, slimy, gooey, bloody scene, Helgenberger states "don't forget she's still half-human." The original SPECIES had first-rate, top-notch actors (most notably Ben Kingsley and Forest Whitaker) embarrass themselves completely with their appearances in the film, providing some of its amusement. SPECIES II continues this trend. FORREST GUMP's Mykelti Williamson plays an astronaut helping super-dud-agent Lennox and super-stupid-scientist Baker track down the two aliens before they f--k us out of existence. At one point, he brandishes a sword instead of a much more sensible weapon, like a machine gun, and claims "I'm goin' back to Africa on his ass!" BABE and STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT's James Cromwell must also be regretting his choice of roles, as he portrays a dumb-hick of a senator who is father to the astronaut infected with the libidinous alien DNA. Justin Lazard has the role of the ill-fated astronaut who causes all the chaos this time around. He does a suitable job playing his character; however, the character itself is the biggest flaw of the film. In the first SPECIES, Natasha Henstridge's Sil seduced men before she killed them. "Seduced" is the operating word here. Much like the vampire myth, people (men in this case) became victims because they gave in to their passion under the spell of a seducer, whether that seducer was a vampire or, in SPECIES, an alien / human hybrid. (Sil, granted, also killed when she felt threatened -- the train attendant being a prime example.) In SPECIES II, the same is true for the most part. Lazard's character, Patrick Ross, seduces the women around him, or he hires out prostitutes. In either case, these victims pay for their sins (or so it could be read as such). In one scene, a rather prolonged scene, however, Ross abducts a woman from a supermarket and shoves her into a van to force himself upon her. This violation, even though the deed is interrupted before completion, is inexcusable for a film that is quite obviously trying for a comic effect, and it disrupts the otherwise cheesy, darkly humorous tone of the movie. Some critics took offense at what they deemed excessive gore in SPECIES II. In an obvious parody of the ALIEN series, for example, 8-year-old children burst out of the stomachs of women Ross had sex with mere moments before. In another scene, Ross tries to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head. Having blown it away with a shotgun, his head slowly rebuilds itself as the camera pans around his body. I'm not a big fan of gore in films; the sight of blood makes me uneasy. These scenes, however, graphic as they may sound, are so unrealistic, fake, and over-the-top that they seem absurdly funny rather than morbidly terrifying. Scenes like these brought laughter from both audiences I was a part of. SPECIES II is most certainly not for everyone. It deserves its R-rating and is completely inappropriate for children. For those adults, however, who still get a big kick out of watching and ridiculing bad monster flicks, this turkey's definately up your alley. (And, hey, what other film would cast comic Richard Belzer as President of the U.S. while throwing Peter Boyle in an insane asylum?) From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon May 15 13:12:54 2000 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!news-peer-europe.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!news.alt.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: James Sanford Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Species II (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 12 May 2000 23:48:42 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Lines: 46 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <8fi58q$hj58$1@nntp3.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer29.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp3.u.washington.edu 958175322 576680 (None) 140.142.17.40 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #24477 Keywords: author=sanford X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer29.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:23525 rec.arts.sf.reviews:2701 Sex equals death. That's the cardinal rule of slasher movies, and it's in full effect in ``Species II,'' a worthless follow-up to the 1995 hit, which was notable primarily for the presence of the decidedly uninhibited Natasha Henstridge as an alien preying on the men of Earth. Like the similarly ill-advised ``Grease 2,'' ``Species II'' uses the old sex-role reversal ploy to get its plot going. This time, the monster is male, an airheaded astronaut named Patrick Ross (Justin Lazard) who ends up infected with extraterrestrial DNA after strolling around on Mars. When Patrick whines about not feeling well, his politico father (James Cromwell, slumming) grouches, ``You think a trip to Mars was rough - try a Senate campaign!'' So what's Patrick to do but pick up scores of easy ladies and attempt to impregnate them with his otherworldly essence? Though considered a real looker by most of the females in his circle, Pat turns out to be considerably less attractive when he sprouts long, slimy gray tentacles during love-making. Meanwhile back at the lab, crusading Dr. Laura Baker (Marg Helgenberger) has managed to create a docile knockout she calls Eve (Henstridge) from the genes of Sil, the troublemaker from the first film. Why Baker bothered to do this is never made clear, but eventually Eve picks up on Patrick's scent, goes into heat and escapes to find him. Wedding bells do not follow. Henstridge fans will be disappointed to learn her part in ``Species II'' is minimal and requires her to remain fully dressed almost all of the time. Since most of the film's running time is taken up with scenes of exploding stomachs and splattering heads, we never find out how Patrick manages to dress and feed his scores of humanoid offspring, why a smart actor like Mykelti Williamson took the demeaning role of Patrick's sex-crazed buddy, or why, despite his enormous celebrity, only one woman in the entire vicinity of the Washington, D.C., area seems to recognize Patrick. It's disappointing to see a skilled director like Peter Medak - who made ``The Krays'' and ``Let Him Have It,'' two of the best British films of the decade - wasting his time on this kind of tripe, although it should be noted he does give it some semblance of professionalism. The digital soundtrack is also highly effective, with each squish and crunch coming through loud and clear. But what can be said about a movie that focuses largely on the struggle of government agents to keep ex-astronauts from having sex? Leave it to Dr. Baker: ``It's awful,'' she moans, prior to the slime-drenched finale. ``Just awful!'' James Sanford