Species: The Awakening |
USA • 2007 • 103m •
  • Directed by: Nick Lyon. • Starring: Edy Arellano, Marco Bacuzzi, Jan Bouda, Ben Cross, Roger Cudney, Montserrat de León, German Fabregat, Marlene Favela, Meagen Fay, Kristyan Ferrer, Cynthia Francesconi, Alejandra Gollas, Alizair Gomez. • Music by: Paul Cristo, Kevin Haskins.    Dr. Hollander, a scientist, takes his niece Miranda to Mexico in an attempt to reverse the effects of the alien DNA he used to create her. However the treatment goes horribly wrong, and it sets Miranda on a killing spree as she sets out to find a mate.
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Review:
I enjoy this movie, with reservations, and I'll try to explain why without any major spoilers. Like I said, there's no rehashing...or returning cast members, for that matter. None of the human-alien hybrids in this movie are genetically identical to Sil and Eve, so none look quite the same in human or alien form. This also allows the writer (Ben Ripley, who scripted "Species III" but seems to be trying much harder this time around) to give them different strengths, weaknesses, and behavioral traits than the hybrids we've seen before without causing inconsistencies. That being said, the E.S.P. on display in this film seems like a stretch. But besides some minor issues, this movie adds new wrinkles to the "Species" mythos without contradicting or shifting emphasis from what we already know.
Our main "template" here is played by Helena Mattson. Her roles tend to capitalize on her body more than her acting talents, but here she does a fine job of portraying a very human character, and the camera doesn't linger on her female anatomy that much. This character never doubted her humanity before, and her reactions to the revelations in the film are believable and evoke sympathy. She also plays a more hostile and contemptible character later in the sequence of events. The actress fits into the new persona well, and conveys this other set of character traits with subtlety. The other two thirds of the main cast consists of actors who've put on unimpressive performances in recent incarnations of "Star Trek," but both are more than passable here.
Another thing that pleasantly surprised me is the number of truly scary moments. Not on the level of the first movie, and maybe not even on the level of "Alien 3," but definitely not your by-the-numbers aliens-killing-humans scenes. The only times the effects don't seem authentic is in scenes where things are happening so quickly it's hard to say what you're even seeing. One complaint goes to the scene where two of the hybrids (in "alien" form, with the exoskeletons and protuberances) appear together. They look so similar I often couldn't tell which was which. The movie's set mostly in Mexico, and uses the locales to creepy effect. You're likely to be reminded of "The Arrival" more than the previous "Species" installments (and that's not just due to the setting; both were produced by Lorenzo O'Brien). There are a couple times the actionslayingmayhem verges on silly, but those are thankfully rare, and the movie doesn't really come across as over-the-top. Just don't expect clinical realism.
I was perhaps most surprised by how the very ending was handled. I was expecting much worse. If this proves to be the final chapter in the "Species" series, it will be a worthy end.
The bottom line is this isn't a bad sci-fihorroraction movie. This isn't even one where you turn your brain off and enjoy yourself. This is a solid piece of cinema, despite going straight to D.V.D. However, there's nothing in the premise or plotting that's really brilliant, the creature designs and effects won't blow your mind, and the script's psychological and sociological insight is limited.
Review by Lee Sherman from the Internet Movie Database.
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