Species II Review
by Ram Samudrala (me AT alanine DOT ram DOT org)April 26th, 1998
---------------------------------------------------------------------- SPECIES II
A film review by Ram Samudrala
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"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).
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