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Species II

Species II

List Price: $14.95
Your Price: $11.96
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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Sheeeeees Baaaaaccck!
Review: "Estrogen levels peaking,... it's like she's in heat."

"You killed one of these ******* alien things before, do it again."

... So naturally I thought I'd wait until it came out on video to watch it. That is how I saw the first Species movie and I liked it, got the DVD and reviewed it, this one I got on DVD skipping the video completely. Before I say what I thought about this movie lets give the basic synopsis of this film.

OK so the plot is almost a carbon copy of the first film, with a few exceptions. In the first Species film scientists receive a signal from outer space that includes the DNA sequences of an alien race which the scientists of course foolishly duplicate. In this film scientists foolishly clone DNA from the original "Sil" alien from the first film to study how to defend the human race from these aliens.

"What should I call her? Sil lite?"

Additionally there is a manned space mission to Mars that brings back dormant alien DNA which "Oh No" thaws out and infects the crew. In the first movie the alien escapes and looks for a mate. Here one of the infected astronauts runs around looking for a mate, and the cloned alien named "Eve" escapes. The finale of the first film takes place in the sewers underneath Los Angeles. The finale of this film takes place in a dark barn on a farm outside of Baltimore.

Wow! Two aliens for the price of one, I guess that's another reason to call this one Species II. Overall I liked this film, although there are a few things that bother me about it. At the beginning of the film during the Mars mission the planted Flag is perfectly straight, and when it waves its in a stiff "this is done with wires" way. The Martian landscape looks like just what it is, a soundstage dressed up as a Martian landscape, no realism here. Can you say "Capricorn One", I knew you could. As with alot of Science Fiction movies that involve non-humanoid aliens you must turn off you brain for this one, even though a ton of plausible scientific, technical and medical terms are tossed around.

The special effects are mostly amazing, computer digitized effects coupled with model miniatures. The Mars mission space scenes are wonderful. I love/ hate the corporate sponsor's logos on the space shuttle's "trailer". As mentioned in the "standard" MGM 8 page booklet the special effects designers decided to use a combination of physical models and computer effects for the aliens in this film, where in the first film the alien was only computer effects.
The extras for this DVD are nice, you have a choice of standard or widescreen formats, I think it's anamorphic, animated menus with loud "eerie" music, original theatrical trailer, audio commentary by the director Peter Medak, and an 8 page booklet with lots of behind the scenes information. There is also a choice of English or French soundtrack and subtitles. This feature is fun during a scene when Army Colonel Lennex makes a comment about this situation not being the "X-files", during the French audio playback it translates as "Star Trek", but the subtitles have "X-files". In addition there is also unrated footage, not shown in the theatres, that has an optional parental lock. Without the lock, three of the four extra scenes are included in the DVD playback. Played separately the picture and sound quality of these scenes are terrible, but when inserted in their proper place in the movie the quality is just like the rest of the film. Since I'm a single male with no kids I don't have a need for the parental lock so I don't know if the lock feature works on this DVD.

I give Species II a 4 for picture and a 5 for sound.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent!
Review: This movie was Excellent! A must for any Natasha Henstridge Fan!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Doesn't even qualify for 'it;s so bad it's good' status
Review: I am reviewing "Species II" as a public service. The movie it's based on has become somewhat of a cult classic. A number of people consider it to be one of the top horror / sci-fi flicks. I may or may not agree with that assessment. I only know that this sequel is so bad that it could be used in film school as an example of what not to do.

It is hard to believe that human beings wrote the script. It must have been generated by a computer program called Select-A-Script. Key in the genre, the running time and the budget, then hit Enter.

"Species II" opens with a small space craft, which looks like a Walkman CD player, leaving a mother ship that seems to be modeled after a can opener. Destination: Mars. Our star Michael Madsen, who was in the original, is a jock / astronaut / Princeton graduate. On the planet's surface, he retrieves a soil sample. He returns to the main craft and everybody goes home. That's right. We spend billions of dollars for a cupful of dirt. A robotic unit could have been sent to do this, but I digress.

Now we are on the space ship. Oh, no! Something horrible happens. What? The whole crew has temporary amnesia afterwards? The movie gets less original after this scene.

Back on Earth, Madsen gets very weird. He must be infected with Alien DNA! He runs around DC picking up girls, who immediately have these children who are born at age four or five. This is enough to kill the girls, who otherwise the producers would have had to pay more. Later the children are dressed in burlap bags. I've no idea who the costume designer was.

Meanwhile, in a Secret Government Testing Base, Eve [Natasha Henstridge] has been created. She is a cross between a human being and DNA from the creature in the original "Species". Marg Helgenberger plays the scientist in charge of Eve. She must constantly remind loony government people, who want to use Eve to track down the alien from Mars, that the girl is, after all, half human. This line of reasoning is like telling people not to shoot a rabid dog because it is also someone's pet.

The aliens are visually rather remarkable. Apparently the budget allowed the use of them only in the last fifteen minutes of the picture.

I surmise that "Species II" was produced by used car salesmen. Only such a breed could have conned director Peter Medak, photographer Matthew F. Leonetti and composer Ed Shearmur into signing up for this project. All three of these men have worked on some highly regarded movies, which I will not mention. None of these men are washed up, so none of them needed this job. Leonetti, for example, is the head cinemaphotographer on the new "Star Trek: Insurrection".

As to the ending of "Species II", I have a question. How did the cat get into the ambulance? The answer, I fear, is that nobody cares.

The movie implies that there will be another sequel. Please! I am down on my knees, begging you not to do it. Stick to used cars, guys.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Very badly produced.
Review: The producers of Species and Species 2 had a great cast of actors and a good premise.
And what did the producers do with that?
They made soft core porn films.
They could have made a good dramatic film and used the actors who really,especially in the first film,created great characters.
BUT,unfortunately the producers were not up to the effort,turning what could have been a great and suspenseful fracise into a dismal and pitiful set of films.
Mind you,the first one is Shakespeare compared to the really awful Species 2.
That's what happens to a francise when amateurs pose aas proffessionals and the producer should go back to his day job.
What a wasted set of films and an opportunity missed.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Okay...
Review: This movie lacked something major.....

Say like Natasha!

The whole movie was like soft core porn!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Better than the first but...
Review: ...It fails horribly. One reason; the utter lack of Natasha Henstridge. She is in this for about 10 minutes. That really bothers me because I have always felt that she was the real star of this series.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Species 2-Pregnancys KABOOM
Review: Species 2 is a ok film but with too much nudity.
The special effects arn't that could but at the part where the woman and her sister have sex with patrick ross the part in the bathroom where the woman gets inpregnated and her belly starts to swell up that was ok a bit funny in the way no one heard her scream and the fact her sister didn't get impregnated was strange . The movie didn't make sense in a few parts and the storyline was a bit wonky. Patrick Ross i recken was a strange charachter once he tried to kill himself. He must of impregnated 40 ladies and all the prostotution places would of seen him do it and report to the police what he did to weomon. Impregnating the woman resulted in a 6 minute swelling in the belly and when it was the size of a average 9 month pregnat woman carrying twins it exploded and in the remains of the woman 10 year old boys appear out of the dead woman. Another reason it didn't make sense is that someone would of noticed he had gone in the rooms himself with a girl then appear with a 10 year old. This movie would be great for males but females wouldn't like it because of what happens to woman in the film would make them fear pregnancy.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: My-my! If this is a sequel...
Review: I am an ardent fan of sci-fi cinema and, of course, I eagerly see a new production when the opportunity occurs. H.R. Giger's name was the reason I saw the first "Species". Then Natasha Henstridge stole my heart away -such a ravishing appearance had I never seen in a horror/sci-fi before! I then decided to see the sequel, if any.
"Species II" proved to be a crock of rubbish, let me not say it otherwise. It made use of everything what had been left aside in the first one: gratuitous gore, sex, violence and total abandonment of the sci-fi items. Too bad, because there are some things which could have made the film watchable: the landing on Mars and the FX for it, Natasha's new look and her metamorphosis, Helgenberger's part -much better than in the first one, and Edward Shearmur's score -1 star for it. The worst is Justin Lazard and his alien persona - just horrible! But this happens when some kids grab an artist's striving! Was it necessary, Mr. Steve Johnson, to see that yucky child birth?? (...) My God, is this all you, guys, could come up with? Dust has come out of Giger's work.
Imagine what could have been done with a bit of imagination out of the Swiss artist! What a shame!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Not worth your time
Review: I wouldn't recommand Species II to anyone. The creation of this movie is only due to the sucess of the first, there shouldn't be any reason for watching this movie except for Natasha Henstridge's boobs. What they want to make was an erotic alien movie but they simply forgot to structure a more convincing story, instead it's just a weak movie with tons of sex scenes to make up for the lame plot. You can still rent the video just for the thrill of it but to spend money on the DVD is a big no-no.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Worst. Movie. Ever.
Review: I'm quite speechless...Terrible acting...shallow plot points...gratuitous *everything*...a complete loss of what very, very little the original movie had going for it. Seriously, if I were to write "the worst script ever" the plot would be something along the lines of Species 2. If you find no movie concepts to be worn out and unoriginal, you may get some base enjoyment out of the primal instincts the movie brings up. Beyond that, I cannot imagine that someone would pay money to permenantly own this movie. It is NOT an improvement upon a blank screen.


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