Species: The Awakening (2007) Reviews

• A tame Species movie that exists only to exploit fans

  filmnut12011-03-05

  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.

• This is what the second one should have been

  rocky_lifter692007-09-06

  Whenever a movie franchise reaches it's fourth entry, it is commonly seen as a red flag. This is especially true for the horror or sci-fi genres. When looking at the history of Species, it becomes very apparent as to why this is the norm. The sleeper hit that was the first one was followed by a horrendous excuse for a movie in part 2 and a ho hum, boring part 3. I am happy to report that "The Awakening" is easily the best sequel of the three. The movie takes a completely different direction than it's predecessors while still focusing on the alien DNA message received from space. We first learn that college professor Miranda Hollander, while appearing to be a very beautiful woman, is in fact a hybrid that was created by her "uncle" Tom and his former student Forbes. Miranda had lived a normal human life until she is found one morning lying naked in the woods. She is taken to a hospital, where she soon transforms and slaughters the staff. Tom finds her unconscious and rushes her to Mexico to find Forbes, who may be able to cure her illness. They find Forbes in a small town and discover that he has been creating more hybrids that, like Miranda, appear completely normal (and are also sterile). Forbes, along with his alien play-toy Azura, inform Tom that Miranda is at the end of her life cycle and will die without a stem cell transfusion. Tom initially balks at the idea, as it will kill the cell "donor" but finally agrees when Miranda's condition worsens. The procedure appears to work, until Miranda awakens as a more sultry, vulgar version of herself. The procedure also undid her sterility and she begins looking for a mate. Tom knows he must stop her, but is torn due to feeling that she is almost his daughter. She succeeds in mating with Forbes, killing him after. But Tom again finds her unconscious shortly after, with the the baby already kicking inside her. Tom takes her back to the lab to discover that her human side is dying as the baby grows. Azura returns with the intent to kill Tom, only to end up fighting Miranda in alien form. She stabs Miranda twice through the stomach, killing her and the baby but Tom is able to kill Azura with a hydrochloric acid-laced shotgun shell. Tom watches Miranda pass away before turning on all the gas in the building and lighting a fire. He walks out as the entire building erupts into flames. While this is in no way a masterpiece, the movie has the most feeling of any of the four. You actually feel for Miranda as she slowly wilts away before she is reborn as a sexy vixen. Helena Mattsson does a mighty fine job in the role and brings a dimension to one of the alien creatures that was only glimpsed when Michelle Willaims played the young Sil in the first film. Ben Cross's Tom, on the other hand, is always teetering between being a bit too over the top and too distraught. Some of his scenes make you want to laugh at the cheese but he is serviceable. Forbes, played by Dominic Keating, is your atypical movie asshole scientist that doesn't care about the mess he makes, as long as he comes out on top. And Marlena Favela as Azura is .... well... she's very hot. That's about it. Her few lines were often delivered very over the top, which can be entertaining. But as a hot alien chick, she works. Some people have complained that a Species movie without Natasha Henstridge is just not right. However, this movie is easily better than the two previous installments. I would even go so far to say that it's in the same realm as the original, which is no small feat for a made-for-DVD sequel. And fortunately, they did not leave us with some stupid cliffhanger to set up a sequel. It was an open and shut case, which is probably what the first one should have been 12 years ago but I digress. While the budget for this movie was a fraction of 1 & 2, the settings are all very nice and the effects are pretty solid. The new look alien is quite welcome after the monstrosity that was Sarah's alien form in 3. All in all, one of the better direct-to-DVD movies I've ever seen. It breathed some air into a way past dead franchise and even though it didn't bring it back from the dead, it was a great entry to the Speices mythos. 6/10

• Alien it ain't

  bernie-1222007-10-08

  I was expecting it to be a bit cheesy and low-budget-looking, but I wasn't expecting to be insulted. This "film" has similar production values and acting caliber as you will find in an average daytime soap. It's as if the crew of "Days of Our Lives" borrowed the studio's gear for a weekend and went and shot a "Sci-Fi/Thriller" because those are popular these days, so we should be able to make some cash with it. It wasn't scary, wasn't thrilling, wasn't even sci-fi-y, just boring and predictable. No plot, bad lighting, laughable critters, wooden acting, no reason at all to force yourself to sit through a turd like this one. The rave reviews here have to be from people associated with the production, or else who haven't actually seen the "film". Avoid at all cost.

• Breakdown of the Film , mainly criticism

  cryptsphinx2010-10-26

  The Cat people , Jaws and Alien established and reinforced what I consider to be the golden rule when it comes to monstrous creatures in film. The monster should never be on screen too long. That is: If the audience is needed to feel threatened by the creature , we should rarely see it. Failing that the creature should be so terrifying that when we do see it we should be transfixed to the screen or covering our eyes in fear (the original Japanese 'Ring' is a great example) The success of any monster simply lies on it appearing a credible threat . If it is on screen too long and it is a person-in-a-suit. The last thing you want the audience to do is to start thinking , wow , what a great costume. The same is true for CGI , if the audience starts thinking about the CGI rather than what the CGI is depicting then it has failed its purpose. Here the Hybrids are on screen too long during the end fight sequence. The lights are too bright and the camera lingers too much , we get a good look at both the Hybrids and while the make up is genuinely impressive this is where it all breaks down for the above reasons. This fight also features slow motion flying tongues. We see the tongue spikes in flight and seeing them actually lessens the scenes tension because they look so unconvincing. During the fight Azura takes her time removing the three one by on and like anyone wanting a fight to the death Miranda goes ahead and waits patiently for her to do this. The built tension just dies. The fight is full of jumps and dives but the choreography is not tailored to the fighting style of the Hybrids, which, given their established propensity for speed and incredible strength , should have been fast and brutal. We hear a lot of hissing and are treated to awkward posing and pointless arm waving but little actual fighting. A short detour into an incomplete look at the characters. Azura. She shows up as a Goth Nun near the start of the film once the leads have reached Mexico ,where we are treated to some awful CGI roof leaping. Later we see here in bed with Fisk and the reason for her attacking Hollander is hand waved away. "Oh , you tried to kill a man I greet as an old friend, never mind" not even a slap on the wrist. When she attacks Hollander in the church she stands rabbit-in-the-headlights and is crushed by a massive cross. This is a creature that can jump , from standing , twenty to thirty feet. I sigh with disappointment every time a convenient piece of scenery is used to kill a previously unstoppable character in any film Her character does very little talking and while we easily ascertain that she harbours a deep loathing of the Leads there is little justification show for this. Fisk: Fisk is an amoral profiteer, Dr Frankenstein shorn of humanity. He feeds off the greed and suffering of others and treating his creations like playthings Roger Cudney does a good job of playing the hedonistic cliché but he is a two dimensional character and really acts as more of a plot device than as a character. Hollander: His motivations are clear up to when he sets a cab driver alight and kidnaps a violent female con artist to kill in order that he can prolong Miranda's life. The film quite oddly doesn't address that Hollander has descended from his stated moral position to where he is willing to kill to achieve his ends. He's been lying to Miranda her whole life and when he finally starts to tell her her origins Hollander simply doesn't convey the news in the way it should. Telling someone that they are a science project that you became attached should be painful for the intelligent scientist but instead it is eerily dispassionate. I will say that the dialogue is quite weak so Ben Cross is absolved – You cant act so well that the script improves. Hollander is written inconsistently, almost like the script called for two characters and the budget consolidated them into one. This fouled my enjoyment of the film most. Miranda: For a film that should be driven by the actions of the female lead Miranda plays a small role in the film compared to Hollander , only over half way in does the film seem to 'start' when she kicks into stalk-mate-kill mode. Her massive personality shift is unexplained , we are left to assume that its genetic. Her come-ons to the hotelier lack any eroticism. She should be pouting and seductive up to the moment of killing or mating. Instead the scene unfolds awkwardly. I have very little to say about Miranda simply because she's not a very well written or well developed character , She has the worst dialogue in the film and I just couldn't muster and kind of sympathy for her at all. I enjoyed the first Species film. it was like watching an animal hunt and watching people rush to prevent a pandemic. The first film was imbued with sexual tension and an air of menace. Species IV is an overly long , badly paced Species film gutted of what made the first film enjoyable. (shortened from over 2500 words)

• what a waste of 90 minutes

  thomswalwell2007-09-13

  it was a pity that IMDb didn't have the ability to rate movies as 0 because that is exactly what i would have given it. however, i have had to give it 1 out of 10, but i mean 0...... plot was very poor, movie was too confusing and the poor plot didn't make me feel a connection, like or dislike anyone in the movie. seemed like random things happening with no explanation or leading up to any event in particular. acting was a bit wooden, and the accent from Dominic Keating was probably the most entertaining of any of the script. please avoid this movie, as you can never get the 90 minutes of your life back that you waste on this.